Pink
by Skye Aerrow
Summary: A visit to the bathroom changes Amber's life forever.
1. Chapter One

Chapter One

The indicator strip displayed a pink plus sign—the very same thing she had hoped not to see. Amber Sweet swore and tossed the hard plastic against the wall. The pregnancy test shattered, scattering plastic pieces everywhere.

_Pink! _Amber swore again, flushed the toilet, and washed her hands. She would get one of the genterns to clean up the mess—they'd been complaining about being bored lately—because she had more important things to do than clean up messes.

On her way out of the bathroom, she caught another glimpse of the colored strip. _Fugliest shit I've ever seen._

* * *

The Graverobber had slipped on his coat and was about to head out for the night when someone lifted the lid of the dumpster. _Their loss,_ he thought wryly. _This trash has been sitting here for weeks._

"Graverobber," Amber growled. "We need to talk."

"We'll talk later," He grabbed his bag and climbed out of the trash receptacle. The empty vials on his belt clinked together as he moved. Through the bag, the blue glow of the Zydrate was unmistakable. He was running low on Z, though, and he needed to stop by the graveyard tonight if he wanted to make any money. "Time for me to go to work."

"I'm fucking_ pregnant_."

He hesitated. "Really?"

"I've taken _eighteen _tests."

"Had to happen sooner or later." The Zydrate peddler turned on his heel and began to walk away, whistling. _Why the hell does she think _I _care? It's not my problem... for once._

"Graverobber!"

He kept walking. "No free hits tonight, princess. I've got to go get—"

"_You're the father_."

Her words punched Graverobber in the gut. He whirled around to face her as air wheezed from his lungs. "What did you say?"

"I said it's your baby." She pressed a hand against her stomach. How much longer would it be until she showed? "I could get one of the genterns to confirm it, but I don't think that's necessary."

His pulse pounded in his ears. "And you're _sure _it's me?"

"Who else do you think I've been with?"

_Oh, Amber... _"Well, I've certainly heard the rumors about the way the Largo family works. And let's be honest—your reputation exceeds you." He smirked, almost sadly. "It explains why your brothers haven't killed you to gain control of GeneCo. I'm sure Pavi and Luigi don't mind the arrangement, either."

Amber was speechless. Sure, people talked—it was no secret everyone questioned the Largo siblings' relationships with each other. It wasn't the first time the subject had come up. _But honest to God, does he expect me to back his embarrassing claim?_ "What I do in my spare time, especially in my own home, is absolutely none of your business," she snapped. "But due to the, uh, recency of this… development, you're the only man who could've gotten me pregnant."

Graverobber cursed long and low, pulling his furry coat tight against his body. He wasn't sure whether he was cold or just trying to protect himself from this shocking revelation, but he was pretty sure he wasn't _that_ cold. Actually, he was sweating—beads of sweat were running down his face and into his eyes. It stung. _Jesus Christ, what are we getting so damn anxious about? There's a simple solution. _"Get rid of it, Amber—the baby, I mean. There's a clinic near your house." He ran a hand through his hair. "You could even have some of your private surgeons do it, I guess."

"You want me to have an abortion?"

"If word gets out you're pregnant, the whole city will be abuzz with rumors worse than any you've heard. And once people find out that I'm the father…"

Amber turned white—an impressive feat for someone already so pale. She could see the headlines now: GENECO'S CEO TO HAVE GRAVEROBBER'S CHILD—AMBER SWEET SLEEPS WITH ZYDRATE DEALERS. "You're right. I've got to do something about this, and fast. I just hope… I hope it's not too late."

Graverobber shoved his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, good luck with that. I've got business to attend to." _It's not my fault. _She _was the one who paid with her body. I suggested credit, but no... _It was all business. He'd had no choice but to accept the payment. _Wouldn't have hurt to mention the hormones, though. _Street-grade Zydrate—that is, Zydrate without rigorous purification—had been proven to contain hormones that cancelled out birth control capsules. Graverobber had always known that—he just never thought it relevant enough to share with anyone. _That scary shit is bad for business and best left well-enough alone._

Amber was torn between anger and fear. She was mad at the Graverobber for having blown her off so easily; mad at him for being so completely _uncaring. I can't believe he's just walking away. It's not like I just got _myself_ pregnant. _The very _least _he owed her was an apology or a couple hundred credits for the operation—_something. _All he offered her was that familiar sardonic smile, that smooth voice with its cutting remarks, that… that… _damnable apathy! __God damn it! _She channeled her energy into kicking at an empty vial, whose cerulean contents were spilled out along the ground. The Zydrate had been wasted. _Just like my life._

* * *

The idea to terminate the pregnancy was becoming more and more appealing to Amber with the passage of time. She was nervous about the procedure, but it was probably similar to every other surgery she'd had before. She knew they'd give her plenty of Zydrate. There was just the matter of whether to use the clinic or her personal surgeons.

She rode the elevator up to the top two floors of the GeneCo tower without another thought. The first of the two floors housed a living room, kitchen, guest suite, and a dining hall. The second contained all of the Largo children's suites and a communal space with couches, bookshelves, and a viewscreen. _How long's it been since I even watched that viewscreen? Damn_. Since their father's death three months ago, she'd been so busy dealing with business, she'd taken to sleeping in her office, on the very same couch where she and Luigi first—

_Luigi! Oh, god. _Amber's stomach turned. _What'll he do when he finds out I'm pregnant?_ He and Pavi were both fiercely protective of her, but Luigi was more unconventional in his methods. Once something kindled his rage, he became an unstoppable force who obliterated everything in his path. Amber shuddered. _Maybe he won't find out until all is said and done, _she thought. _If he doesn't know I'm getting an abortion, he'll never know I was pregnant. _That logic ruled out using her personal surgeons. They were all too eager to divulge her secret surgeries to Luigi, who tried to prevent Amber from throwing all their inheritance away. And Pavi always had four or five genterns hanging off of him. _I _have_ to go to that clinic. It's the only way to keep things quiet.._

Amber's private suite had recently been redecorated to resemble a jungle. Converting the room had been difficult, mostly due to the fact that there were no jungles or rain forests on the planet. They had all been wiped out by the year 2013, so no one had any frame of reference for the design. Amber had had to rummage through her father's holographic encyclopedia files to find pictures, and even then, the designers were confused. After several threats from Luigi, however, Amber soon found herself in the midst of an honest-to-God Garden of Eden. They'd even put in a fountain with a waterfall.

_The plants are droopy_. Amber changed out of her black silk bathrobe into something more clinic-appropriate. Her valets were also nowhere to be seen, and it looked as though the gentern who cleaned her suite was slacking off. _I'm trying to run the most powerful corporation in the world. Is it too much to ask for a little obedience?_

She had finished dressing and was rolling on some lipstick when Pavi walked into the room. "What are you doing in here?" Amber snapped without thinking.

"The door was… ah, open, so I thought…" Pavi fumbled for the right words. "I wanted to, a-talk to you about something."

He was wearing another face—a face that looked nothing like hers—and she was obviously offended. _So he'd rather wear the face of a generic scalpel slut than the face of the woman in charge of the cosmos? Some brother. _"Spit it out. I've gotta be somewhere."

If Pavi was upset by her curt reply, he gave no indication. "I… I ah, found a-something in the bathroom this morning." He held the shattered remains of a pregnancy test out to her. The telltale pink strip screamed obscenities. "There were seventeen others in the trash."

Amber stared at him. _Holy shit._

"Is there a-something you wish to make known to the Pavi?"

"I guess you already know I'm pregnant." She debated whether or not to say more. _I never should've claimed that test. I could've pinned it on a gentern._ Amber swallowed and without thinking, added, "I haven't told Luigi yet, so if you see him, could you send him over here?"

_Luigi's not the father. Why the hell did I just say that?_

"_Oh_." From under the slut's face, Pavi's eyes blinked slowly. He knew Amber and Luigi had been together several times, but he'd never imagined a resulting infant. "Aha... ah, yes. I will… let him know."

Amber watched as her brother folded the broken plastic up in his hands and left the room. _What the hell did I just do? _She picked up a brush and touched it to her hair_. _Immediately, she set it back down again. _Luigi's gonna slit my throat for sure._


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Logic seemed to fail Amber as she made her way down to the abortion clinic. She seemed undaunted by the fact that she'd just told Pavi that Luigi was the father, and apparently had no idea what a mess she had just gotten herself into. Had Amber Sweet been more concerned with her long-term interests, she would have realized what a critical error she'd made—Luigi would find out about the pregnancy before she made the problem disappear, and therefore, would probably unleash his rage either on her or whoever happened to be nearby, and forever hold a grudge against his sister for this aberration.

Had Amber Sweet taken the time to really understand what she'd just done, she wouldn't have been so shocked to see Luigi in the waiting room with his knife pointed in her general direction.

"You can't waste the fucking kid," he snapped at her. "Turn around; we're going home."

Amber's mouth hung open. "Wha—how did—"

"Shut the fuck up and _move_!"

Amber stiffened and cursed as Luigi prodded her back with the knife. Color rose high in her cheeks as her brother marched her out of the clinic and up the street towards the GeneCo tower. "God, Luigi, did you have to do that in front of all those people?"

"Why didn't you fucking tell me you were pregnant!"

"What?"

"You sent Pavi because you didn't have the _balls_ to tell me yourself!"

"I wasn't sure how you'd react," Amber confessed._ I was pretty sure you'd just cut the thing out yourself, and then carve my face up real good to teach me a lesson. _"I wanted to wait to tell you until we had the chance to spend some time alone."

Luigi's lips twitched in a way that made Amber think he knew she was bluffing. "How far along are you?"

"How far along… am I?" She blinked at him.

"Is there a fucking _echo_ in here? I asked you a simple question!"

"I don't know how far along I am!" Amber shouted. "I just took the damn test this morning!"

Luigi backhanded her so hard she tasted blood.

"I told you, I don't know," Amber said meekly. "I'm sorry."

They stood silently in the street, facing each other. Amber's gaze dropped to the ground, and Luigi stared fixedly at his knife.

Then, Amber touched her cheek in pain, and turned and walked away from him.

* * *

The genterns hanging around the tower seemed to have full knowledge of Amber's predicament. As Amber made her way up to her room, everyone she passed eyed her with a mixture of surprise and sympathy. _Poor Amber Sweet, _they seemed to say. _She inherited GeneCo, but she couldn't figure out birth control. What a shame. _

She made a point to meet each curious gaze and hold it until the other broke the contact first. Amber had been working hard to change her reputation since gaining control of GeneCo, and she was not going to let a little scandal damage her self-respect.

_Luigi_ was doing a fantastic job of hurting that.

Someone had finally cleaned her suite up. Her clothes were in the closet, the carpet had been vacuumed, and everything was in its place. The plants had been watered, too.

That meant at least _one_ of the genterns was still loyal to her.

Amber sulked all the way to her bed. She flopped down onto the comforter with a heavy sigh, screwing her cold eyes shut. So far, this was turning out to be the worst day of her life, and it wasn't even half-past noon.

How had this happened to her, anyway? She'd been taking birth control pills since she was old enough to understand their purpose. She was protected, she should've been fine… but the universe must have conspired against her because she'd gotten knocked up all the same.

Amber's watch beeped noisily. She pressed the little blue button, and a Repo Man's head sprang into view. She'd forgotten this one's name.

"I have successfully completed the assignment, Miss Sweet. I can return GeneCo's property to you whenever convenient."

She recognized the voice. Mercury Drake, the youngest GeneCo Repo Man and by far the most attractive. The tone of _her _voice shifted dramatically. "It's convenient for me whenever it's convenient for you, Mercury. I don't have any plans…"

He hesitated with his answer. "I'll be by in an hour or so. I don't want to waste your time, I know you're a _very _busy woman."

"I'm sure I can pencil you in," Amber replied. "You _are _my favorite Repo, after all." She slid off of the bed and walked over to the mirror, frowning as she laid a hand over her soon-to-be-rounding stomach.

It was probably foolish for a woman in her situation to be as flirtatious as she was.

Mercury's voice brightened. "Let me hose off, and then I'll be right over."

"Mmkay."

The hologram disappeared, and Amber checked herself out in the mirror again. She felt bloated, but she didn't look it. Maybe Mercury hadn't heard the news yet. Maybe fate wasn't _totally _against her, after all.

* * *

Amber was sitting on her desk filing her neatly-manicured nails when Mercury entered the room. He was no longer wearing his Repo suit – thank God because that thing gave her the creeps – and had changed into a pair of black slacks and a tight sweater that highlighted the toned muscles in his arms and chest.

She looked up at him and smiled. "You sure got here fast."

"I was just downtown." His eyes flashed as he approached her. They were much darker than hers, more navy than ice, and they were absolutely captivating. "And I headed over here right after you hung up."

"Hm." Amber blinked at him. He was so close now that she could reach out and touch him. Her hands ghosted over his biceps. "How long's it been since we last spoke, Mercury?"

"Too long." He put his hands on her waist and leaned in to kiss her. Amber eagerly accepted his attentions, opening herself up to his careful ministrations. She pulled away for a moment, smirking at him.

"Is there any particular reason you're kissing me like I'm made of glass?"

It was a teasing remark, meant only to incite playful banter, but Mercury's face fell. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and cleared his throat before trying again. His hands slipped from Amber's waist and came to rest on the desk. "I, um, I saw you and your brother coming out of the abortion clinic."

Amber's pupils shrunk. "Oh my God."

"I'm not even going to ask about it," Mercury continued, "because it doesn't make that much of a difference to me. I'm just trying to be gentle because I'm told… it hurts afterward."

He was handling her with care because he'd been told… Amber frowned severely, the expression etching lines into her forehead. If she hadn't been so frustrated, she would've immediately smoothed her face out so as to prevent wrinkles. "You stupid, perverted _moron_ – you think just because I called you into my office, you're definitely going to get some?"

"I-I didn't mean to offend you, I just thought that maybe you and I – "

She placed her hands on his chest and shoved him away from her, an impressive feat, considering his strength. "Get the hell out of my tower before I call security."

"Amber, please, I – "

"Get _out!"_

Mercury nearly fell over backwards in his rush to the elevator. Angry tears stung the surface of Amber's surgically-enhanced eyes, but she didn't let him see her cry. It wasn't until the doors slid shut and the elevator began to drop that she graciously allowed herself to release the evidence of her emotional pain.

Afterwards, she realized -- ironically -- that he hadn't even delivered the organs.

* * *

An hour later found Amber walking around the back streets of the city, alley to alley, in search of the source of all her angst. She found the Graverobber precisely where she'd expected to, in the same putrid dumpster he'd been laying in that morning.

"I told Luigi it was his," Amber told him as she lifted the lid and nearly keeled over.

He snickered until he saw the look on her face, and then, covered the laugh with a cough. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, he began laughing again, and this time, made no move to hide his amusement. "I can't believe it! How long do you think it'll be before the news that you got knocked up by your brother is all over the city?"

"Thanks once again for your overwhelming support." She let go of the lid and leaned against the side of the dumpster so that she didn't have to look at him. Good God, the smell was _terrible, _though. "It wouldn't hurt you to sympathize with me for _once_, you know. I've had the most godawful day of my life."

"It's only a little past one," he remarked.

"I know!"

"Jeez, what's stuck up your ass today?"

Oh, if he only _knew. _"I don't know, _Graverobber, _what could _possibly _have put me in such a bad mood? Could it be that I went through _eighteen fucking pregnancy tests _this morning, only to discover that I'm having some shitty dealer's _baby? _Or maybe, it has something to do with the fact that now I have _Luigi _breathing down my neck, too, embarrassing the hell out of me by dragging me out of an abortion clinic!"

"Well, damn," he said appreciatively.

"On top of all that, my best Repo Man expects me to have _sex_ with him every time he comes to _drop off organs_!"

Amber wasn't sure how it happened, but suddenly, she found herself sobbing into Graverobber's smelly old coat with reckless abandon, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face buried deep in his chest. He said absolutely nothing while they stood there and simply held her against him, closing his eyes and waiting for the moment to pass.

Who said he wasn't sympathetic? It wasn't as though he'd jump out of a dumpster for _any_ woman that came along. Amber needed to understand that.

The Graverobber couldn't explain what had led him to pull Amber into his arms. Whether it was a sudden surge of paternal instinct, a strong wave of sympathy, or just a fluke, he couldn't say. He wasn't so sure it mattered.

Amber regained her composure after a few minutes. She wiped at her eyes and stepped away from him, letting her arms fall by her sides. "It's the hormones," she told him.

"I got that."

They remained still for several more moments, just looking at each other, taking in everything that had just happened and interpreting it to fit their individual perceptions of reality. Graverobber was the one who ended up breaking the silence, but the break was presented with a certain reluctance.

"You'd better get going," he said in a low voice, resisting the urge to touch her by shoving his hands in his pockets. What was wrong with him today?

"You're right." She smiled gently. "Luigi will be worried sick."

Gazes met and lingered for longer than was necessary. Silence threatened to envelop them in its deceiving warmth, heavily intimating emotional attachment.

Graverobber sensed the changing wind first and climbed back into the dumpster before his life took another dramatic turn. Amber was left standing on the ground, confused, but he didn't feel the least bit guilty.

If she'd realized what was about to happen, she would've turned tail and run, too, because neither one of them could've made it out of those coming moments unchanged.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

By the end of the week, Amber found herself in a living hell. The media was hounding her tirelessly now, having found out all about her pregnancy – she had Luigi's ostentatious display at the clinic to thank for that – and if she managed to go anywhere without having a flashbulb explode in her face, it was a small miracle. Holobulletin boards, viewscreens, tabloids and the Internews all said things like, GENECO CEO SCREWED OVER AND KNOCKED UP, AMBER SWEET PREGNANT!, and WHO HAS FATHERED SWEET'S SUCCESSOR? It was all so dramatic and over-the-top that Amber almost laughed at the situation. Then again, the media frenzy was the very _least _of her problems.

There were four men she had to deal with, four completely different and yet totally alike men, all with different perspectives on Amber's predicament and different ways of handling the situation altogether.

At the top of the list was Graverobber – the father of the baby and the man responsible for her plight. He seemed predictably apathetic regarding the matter and didn't appear interested in the idea of fatherhood, and it bothered Amber that he didn't care about her pregnancy. She was carrying the product of one of _his_sperm cells, after all – couldn't he at least take some ownership in that?

Next, by order of importance, was Luigi. He believed himself to have gotten Amber pregnant, and he seemed to be much more affected by this revelation than the _actual_father, the Graverobber. For whatever reason, he certainly hadn't supported her decision to terminate the pregnancy – he'd screamed that while holding her at knifepoint. Why did he care as much as he did? Luigi wasn't exactly the kind of man who put others ahead of himself. These days, he was even _polite around_ Amber – holding doors open for her, bringing her glasses of water in the middle of the night, and even sharing his umbrella with her. His sudden civility puzzled her to no end, and with that puzzlement came a certain degree of frustration.

Mercury and Pavi were at the bottom of the list. Mercury had infuriated her by insinuating that she gave it up to every guy she met – really, there were only _three_men she'd ever slept with, one of them in exchange for drugs, so maybe that didn't count. Luigi was angry so often that they rarely had sex anymore, and she'd stopped doing it with Pavi after only the first time because she hadn't been able to stomach looking at her face on somebody else's body. So really, she was only sleeping with one man, and that man was _not_Mercury Drake. She certainly didn't want to imagine him fathering her child – or any child, for that matter...

She was lying in bed on Friday morning when the idea came to her. It was such a spectacular thought that she immediately opened her eyes and reached for her watch, dialing the number of yet another one of her favorite Repo Men.

Reed Lorris answered on the first beep. "Good morning, Miss Sweet. You don't usually call this early in the morning… I didn't forget to drop off organs or something, did I?"

Amber smirked. "No, you're fine, Reed. I was actually calling to give you a special assignment."

"_Special_assignment?"

"Yes. It involves another GeneCo employee – a Repo Man, in fact."

Hesitantly, Reed asked, "Who is it?"

"Mercury Drake. You know him, right?" Amber chewed on her bottom lip, tilting her head back and staring up at the ceiling. "Well, I want you to repossess his balls."

There was no real reason to take back Mercury's testicles. They were his own, not GeneCo property – in fact, the only organ he'd bought from GeneCo was his liver, and he'd already managed to pay that debt off. Reed must have known that Amber was asking something unusual of him because when he spoke again, his voice was shaky. "H-he doesn't have any more payments, Miss Sweet."

"I know that, you idiot."

Pause. "I… You want me to just castrate him?"

"That's what I had in mind, yes."

She knew Reed was frowning behind his mask. "May I ask why?"

"I don't pay you to ask questions, Reed," Amber replied, "I pay you to get the job done."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Amber, what the fuck are you _doing_? We were supposed to be at the surgeon's an _hour_ago!" Luigi stormed into the room fully dressed in his trademark dress shirt and black slacks and unceremoniously ripped the watch off of her arm. The signal to Reed was lost. Amber's brother then proceeded to tear the blankets off of her and drag her out of bed. Amber was thrown over Luigi's shoulder like a sack of potatoes – though what a _potato_ was, she couldn't say – and carried into her bathroom. Despite her audible protests, Luigi removed her silk robe and underwear and pushed her into the shower.

Amber was too stunned to say anything immediately. She showered quickly and stepped out, opening her mouth to speak. The towel Luigi shoved into her face muffled her frustrated complaint. "What the hell is going on, Luigi?" Amber snapped as she dried off and put on the clean underwear and dress Luigi had somehow found time to lay out for her. "Why the hell did you make a surgeon's appointment?"

"You need to see a fucking surgeon, that's why." He aimed the hairdryer at her head and it roared to life, blasting Amber's face with scorching air. She whined, and Luigi scowled at her. "Shut your dirty mouth, you fucking whore."

Amber sat in silence and allowed him to dry her hair. She ran a brush through the tangles and hastily applied some makeup. Luigi dropped her dirty clothes into the laundry chute and sprayed her with perfume as she reentered the bedroom. The fragrance hit her in the eyes, and she swore. "Damn it, Luigi! What is this shit, anyway?"

"It's Pavi's," he said, smirking. "That _other_ shit makes you smell like a hooker."

Amber growled a sullen reply. Luigi grabbed her arm and jerked her down to the elevator. They rode to the bottom of the GeneCo tower in silence, and then entered the limousine that awaited them outside with an equal degree of silence, which they both seemed perfectly comfortable with.

… for a little while, anyway. "Really, why are you taking me to see a surgeon?" Amber asked again.

"You're pregnant," he said, as though speaking to a mentally-retarded person. "We need to go when you're going to have the fucking thing, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

He looked at her for a moment, just watching her, and then he rolled his eyes, turning back to the window. "Fucktarded scalpel slut."

They arrived at the surgeon's office a few minutes later and were ushered in immediately without having to wait – one of the many perks of ruling GeneCo. The gentern that greeted them remarked that Luigi might prefer to sit in the waiting room instead of going in with Amber. Luigi ran her through with a knife and left the mess for someone else.

The examination room they entered was cold and sterile, lit by overhead fluorescent lights. There was a reclining chair covered by a strip of paper, a table with several sharp medical instruments, and a row of syringes lined up on the counter. It gave Amber the creeps. "I don't want this room, Luigi, it scares the shit out of me."

"Cry me a fucking river," he shot back, lowering his long frame into the only other chair in the room.

Amber pouted at him as she sat down in the patient chair and tried not to look at the instruments on the table beside her.

"What the fuck, Amber, you get surgeries done all the time," Luigi remarked when he noticed her discomfort. "You should be used to all that shit right there."

"I never get a good look at the instruments. I'm deep under the Z by the time they wheel me into the operating room," Amber replied, closing her eyes.

Luigi grunted, but thankfully, said nothing.

After what seemed like years, the surgeon entered, flanked by two genterns. The surgeon was a short, fat man, slightly balding, and looked to be around fifty. The genterns were pretty enough, and the taller one – Luigi noticed – was covered in blood. She'd apparently been the one to clean up Luigi's mess in the waiting room. The genterns eyed Luigi warily as they passed, brushing past the surgeon to stand at the very rear of the room.

Luigi found this funny, and made his feelings known by laughing.

The surgeon cleared his throat. The blade of Luigi's knife flashed, Amber glared at him, and the weapon returned once more to Luigi's pocket.

The old surgeon appeared for the most part unaffected. He nodded to Amber, shaking her hand. "Miss Sweet, it's a pleasure to treat you. I'm Dr. Mathis."

"Nice to meet you, doctor."

"A real fuckfest," Luigi muttered.

Again, Dr. Mathis seemed numb to Luigi's disrespect. "Miss Sweet, Mr. Largo has expressed concerns regarding the state of your… of the infant. He has requested we run some tests, do some holographic imaging, perhaps an amniocentesis."

He was speaking Vietnamese. "Um, okay, whatever."

"You don't know what any of that is, do you?" He smiled gently.

Amber shook her head. The doctor said that he would explain everything to her as they went along, so that she would know exactly what they were going to be doing to her. Luigi added that they'd better explain things to him, too, or they'd have a few more "messes" to clean up that day.

Dr. Mathis had his genterns bring in a small hologram projector, attached to a series of wires with electrodes on the ends. Amber looked at the doctor as the genterns taped the electrodes to her stomach. "Start explaining."

"This is the holographic imaging. Once we turn the projector on, miniscule digital impulses will be fired through the electrodes and into your body, creating a holographic picture of your baby. Before holograms, we used something called ultrasound, which was a little less painful, but wasn't nearly as clear and vivid as a hologram."

"Pain?" Amber winced, speaking at the same moment one of the genterns turned on the machine. It felt as though something were stinging her flesh, but she automatically forgot the discomfort when the projector threw up an image of her unborn child. "Oh my god, it looks like a sea monkey."

"The fuck it does," Luigi replied. "That's my kid."

"Judging from this alone," Dr. Mathis said. "I'd say you're about four weeks in, barely into your first trimester."

Amber blinked.

"You'll be experiencing some minor cramping at this point, as well as some morning sickness. Most miscarriages also occur during the first trimester."

"This baby dies while she's seeing you and I'll rip your fucking heart out," Luigi promised.

"Duly noted." The surgeon turned the projector off, and the hologram disappeared. "We can't do the amniocentesis today since you're not far enough along, but there is one other test we can run today."

Amber glanced over at Luigi. He was cleaning his knife with a tissue and didn't acknowledge her. "All right."

"As I'm sure you are aware, Zydrate is an extremely dangerous drug when concerning unborn children. I'd like to test you to make sure your Zydrate abuse hasn't had disastrous affects on your infant already."

Amber stiffened, her grip tightening on the armrests of the chair. Her _Zydrate abuse?_How did he know about that? She spoke through gritted teeth. "I don't think that will be necessary - "

"What are the effects?" Luigi interrupted.

"I, er, mismatched... eyes," Dr. Mathis replied. "And, um, abnormal... hair color."

"The fuck do _I_ care about eye or hair color! _She doesn't need the fucking Zydrate test_."

These words, combined with the threat of Luigi's knife at his throat, made Dr. Mathis reconsider. "Well, you're the father, I suppose you'd know… you're right, Mr. Largo, she doesn't need the test."

Luigi's fingers on the handle of the knife twitched. He locked eyes with the surgeon and slowly lowered the blade, turning to Amber. "Let's get the hell out of here. We need to buy you some vitacapsules and shit like that."

Amber slid out of the chair and followed after him like a lost puppy. Luigi knew she was still using Z, then, and he didn't want the surgeon to find out. How was it that he hadn't stopped her, though, if he'd known this whole time…? "Luigi," Amber began once they were seated in the limo. "Why didn't you let him give me the Zydrate test?"

"We both know the Zydrate Support Network's a fucking joke, but you're the owner of GeneCo, and that looks bad," he replied simply. "Besides, they jam a fucking _huge_ needle into your liver, and that hurts like a major bitch."

Just as they had left GeneCo in silence, they returned to GeneCo in a similar fashion. Luigi hopped out of the limousine and beat the chauffeur to open Amber's door. She stepped out, and he closed it behind her.

These little moments of silence were by far the most telling. The body language and subtleties exchanged between the Largo siblings said so much without spoken words. If one was really paying attention, they would notice the startling significance of a simple touch, a look, an eye movement.

They would see the things that Amber failed to notice, like the momentary spark of affection that lit up Luigi's eyes as he stood beside his sister in the elevator, the slight smile on his lips as he held the door for her, the premature regret in his voice whenever he insulted her.

Were someone taking the time to observe and interpret all these important little things, they would've had no trouble coming to the conclusion that maybe - just maybe - Luigi Largo actually _cared_about his sister.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

There was only one thing worse than being pregnant, Amber soon realized, and that one thing just happened to come to her in the form of an ugly article on the Internews. She was sitting in her office, staring at the computer screen, when something on the home page caught her eye. She clicked the link, scrolled down, and began to read.

**Sweet's Baby the Product of Incest  
**By Caldera Grady

RUMORS HAVE BEEN flying for years regarding the relationship between Amber Sweet and her brother, Luigi Largo. It has long been this reporter's humble opinion that the reason Largo didn't kill Sweet for rights to his father's company is that he held a certain intimate attachment to Sweet, though until now, there was no viable proof.

It would seem that Sweet, the new head of multi-trillion-dollar GeneCo, hasn't been as cautious with her private life as she has with business thus far. According to highly-accredited Genetic Surgeon Morey Mathis, Sweet and Largo entered his clinic on Saturday in hopes of pinning down a due date. Dr. Mathis stated that Sweet was already one month along, into her first trimester. "I ran some tests, but the couple seemed very anxious," Dr. Mathis told us. "Mr. Largo was agitated the entire time, going so far as to threaten me with his knife."

For anyone who's lived in this city for more than a year, Largo's threat of violence should come as no surprise. But threatening violence for the sake of his sister? That's something entirely different. Could it be that Luigi Largo is starting to feel some paternal pride and a need to protect the mother of his child?

Only time will tell. We can only watch and wait as the months pass because this situation could very well be as scandalously big as Sweet's growing stomach.

—CG

Amber choked on the coffee she'd been drinking and spilled it all over the front of her blouse. She yelled for Luigi even though he was probably upstairs and wouldn't be able to hear her. Then, she yelled for a gentern – any gentern – because if she was expected to stomach something like this, she needed a few good surgeries to make it worth her while.

* * *

"You can't _have _a fucking _surgery_! I've said that three times!"

"How the hell do you expect me to deal with this, then?"

"Like a mature adult, same way you should've handled it from the fucking beginning!"

Amber hurled her coffee cup at him. It smacked against the wall beside his head and shattered, getting coffee everywhere. Luigi swore and turned away from her. It was the hormones and the indignance at the article combined that made her so violent – she'd never thrown anything at him before – but it still bugged him nonetheless. _He _was the angry one! She couldn't just take his claim to fame like that! "Amber, you're a fucking whore, you know that? Bet you get some street-grade sex with your street-grade Z—I wouldn't be surprised if you let some fucking _graverobber_ bang you just for the hell of it!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Amber screamed, angrily hurling a stapler at the back of his head. It bounced off his skull with a resounding _dink_ and landed on the floor.

Luigi grimaced, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to breathe – _You can't strangle her, you sick son of a bitch, she's carrying your kid, nine long months of hellish agony…_ He had mixed success with controlling his emotions. Amber was safe for now, but he still saw red. Unless he killed something soon, he'd end up murdering her in his sleep.

"I gotta get the fuck out of here," the Largo brother spat. "See ya around, _princess_."

He flung the pet name at her like a curse, and Amber winced. Luigi went back into the elevator and pressed the button, muttering a string of curses even as the doors closed.

* * *

Pavi found Amber sprawled out on her bed, sobbing. He was wearing her face again, and although that normally would've made her smile, she was far too emotionally distraught to even notice.

"I saw the-a article on the Internews," he said, sitting beside her on the bed. "I'm am so sorry."

"I'm the sorry one," Amber replied, sniffing. "Can't even keep myself from getting knocked up, and now I've brought you two into this."

Pavi absently patted his hair. "Publicity is not all bad for the Pavi. What does-a Luigi think?"

"Of the baby, you mean? Or the article?"

"Both."

"He wants me to keep the baby. And he wants Caldera Grady dead."

"Who _wouldn't _want that woman dead?" Pavi said with a frown. "She is-a the same reporter who wrote that nasty article about Father."

Amber crossed her arms over her chest. Pavi was referring to an article that had surfaced shortly after Marni had left their father for Nathan Wallace. Amber had been too young to understand what was going on at the time, but Pavi and Luigi knew what the words: GOOD IN BUSINESS, BAD IN BED meant. Rotti Largo's self-esteem had never been the same. Grady had also written an extensive article regarding GeneCo's corrupt business practices. "I think I might have Reed go waste her."

"Really? Hm, I thought Mercury was your-a favorite."

Her jaw clenched. "We had a falling-out."

Pavi appeared to be mulling something over. He was still looking at Amber, but she doubted he'd heard what she'd just said.

"Credit for your thoughts?"

"Oh, ah… I was just thinking," Pavi said, "that you shouldn't let Luigi push-a you around so much. You're too smart to be bullied."

He'd noticed, then. "Thank you, Pavi."

"I'll tell you what else. You get that surgery you want, because the Pavi thinks-a you deserve it." He winked at her and passed a few credits into her hand. "You go find Jolenia, she'll do whatever you-a like, dear sister."

Oh, he'd heard about that, too? How thin were the walls? And how loud had they been _shouting_? Amber gratefully accepted the credits, wiping her eyes and grinning at Pavi. "Thank you so much. You didn't have to do that."

"I know," Pavi said with a laugh in his voice. "The Pavi is too kind."

They hugged briefly and Pavi left. Amber changed into her robe, tucked the credits into her pocket, and headed downstairs to find Jolenia. Luigi would understand—she _deserved_ to feel better after the devastating week she had just had.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Amber hated her pregnancy with an almost unholy passion. After she had gotten her forbidden surgery and fallen off the additional Zydrate trip, she had been in a great deal of pain and had barely been able to get out of her bed. She had to crawl to the bathroom to throw up, muttering a steady stream of curses the entire time, and sometimes she was not even able to make it over to the toilet before her stomach rebelled and violently emptied itself. The cramps were there, too, just as the doctor had promised.

She was starting to wonder if all this misery was even worth it.

In addition to having to deal with the physical pain, Luigi had yet to check on her, and it had been three days since she had been out of the bedroom. Pavi dropped by every few hours to deliver meals, take her temperature, and even help her to the toilet when she needed to throw up again. He was an angel, and she was eternally grateful to him for the displays of kindness, but she never thanked him aloud. Pavi did not seem too upset about her silence – he knew she was disappointed that Luigi was not around. It had nothing to do with him.

If Amber saw the brief flicker of hurt in his eyes, she never said anything about it. Pavi did not, either, so maybe they could both pretend that it had never happened.

Another day or two passed. Pavi came and went, some genterns checked to see that everything was healing accordingly, and Luigi still made no appearance. Amber lost track of the time – her life was nothing but a blur of pain, disappointment, and vomit.

She thought her stomach was starting to get bigger, too, but the mirror assured her that it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

Sleep claimed her over and over again, and she welcomed it with open arms. Unconsciousness was the only thing that seemed to make her feel any better. Sometimes Amber floated around in a trancelike state, and Pavi would stroke her hair and tell her to just go to sleep. She had done too much sleeping, but it was the only way to cope with anything.

She did not want to face the world quite yet.

* * *

**Dr. Mercury Drake Rumored Victim of Repo Man**

By Caldera Grady

MORE RUMORS THIS week, folks, but this time regarding an important pillar of the Sanitarium Island community.

Dr. Mercury Drake, GeneCo's youngest and most promising surgeon, was recently spotted wandering around Sanitarium Square. Bystanders report that Dr. Drake was walking rather stiffly, cursing under his breath, clutching his crotch, and muttering something about "eunuchs."

Now, I have never been the sort of woman to jump to conclusions, and _Vanity & Vein_is not the sort of publication to lend itself to gossip. However, it is impossible to deny such glaring evidence, and to seek an explanation for this occurrence.

Could it be that Dr. Drake was unable to make a payment? Has a Repo Man claimed his – for lack of a better term – masculinity?

Only time will tell. All we can do it wait and see whether or not Dr. Drake will eventually admit his plight.

—CG

* * *

Amber finally emerged from her solitude after a full week. Luigi marched in and dragged her out of bed just as carelessly as he had before, threatening her under his breath to "get the fuck dressed, or else." She whined at him and complained about his absence, but that only resulted in more belligerence on his part.

Once again, she numbly let him push her into the shower, dry her hair, and dress her. It took too much energy to try to resist.

"Where are we going?" Amber asked as he half-shoved, half-carried her out of her bedroom.

"Your office," he said simply. "Someone wants to see you."

When she opened her mouth to ask who, he smacked her. She did not bother to whimper this time. Odds were, he would hit her again.

_Who the hell do you think you are!_Amber wanted to ask him. _You don't even come to see if I'm still alive, and now you think you have every right to_beat _me? Fuck you, Luigi,_fuck _you._

Amber limped all the way over to the elevator. Luigi noticed.

"What the fuck's wrong with your legs?"

"I had my femurs and tibias shaped," Amber replied weakly.

He growled at her, throwing her into the elevator so hard that her skull smacked against the back wall and she slid to the floor. The elevator doors slid shut. "_I told you not to get any fucking surgeries, you fucking whore!"_

"I needed something to take my mind off of that article, Luigi!"

"You fucking scalpel slut, you think you can just go behind my _back_ and fucking – _goddammit_! Don't even _look_ at me, you make me fucking _sick_!" He turned away from her in disgust and jabbed one of the buttons with his middle finger. Amber closed her eyes to keep the tears at bay, gingerly massaging her aching calves.

When the doors opened again, Luigi stepped out of the elevator without so much as another look in Amber's direction. She had to get up by herself, the dam behind her eyes finally breaking as she pulled herself up and white-hot pain shot through her veins. Luigi said something to someone just out of sight, and then turned and walked back into the elevator. He pushed Amber out into the office and swore. The elevator doors closed behind her.

Amber's eyes revealed that her visitor was Reed Lorris, who helped her hobble over to the couch. She fell onto it and laid back, draping her legs over one of the ends. "Thanks, Reed."

"Of course." He stared at her legs, but not in the appreciative, lustful way she was used to. "Those stitches are new. May I ask about the procedure?"

"Femurs and tibia reshaping. Hurt like a bitch."

"I bet." He went over to the chair behind her desk, spreading his fingers on the armrest. "May I?"

"Sure."

Reed sat, propping his elbows up on the desk and resting his chin in his hands. He regarded Amber thoughtfully, with just the hint of a smirk on his thin lips.

Amber looked at him for a moment before letting her eyelids fall closed. "What's on your mind, Reed?"

"I took Mercury's balls, just like you wanted," he replied. "And you should've seen the _look_ on his face when he realized what was going on."

"But he didn't know it was you."

"I did it without the mask. I _wanted_him to know it was me."

His admission surprised Amber. She sucked in a breath and waited for him to elaborate. When nothing more came, she asked, "Why did you want him to see you?"

"Amber," he said after a long pause, and his voice betrayed his age. "Amber, I have always been protective of you, even though you've only known me for a few years."

He'd called her Amber, not Miss Sweet. Interesting. "What are you saying?"

"Amber, I'm your uncle, your mother's older brother."

Amber stared at him.

"When your parents got divorced, I stayed with you and your brothers for a few days while Rotti was in court," Reed added. "Nathan was there sometimes, too."

"Oh my god," Amber said.

"I wanted Mercury to see me so that he'd learn not to screw with you again, unless he wanted to answer to me."

"Oh my _god_," she said again. "Reed, why didn't Daddy ever say anything?"

Reed shrugged. "I became a Repo Man on the premise that I needed to pay off surgery debts. I think Rotti wanted to cut the ties after he separated from your mother."

Amber chewed on a long, black fingernail, staring fixedly at a point just above Reed's head. Now that she thought about it, her mother's maiden name had been Lorris… and she'd had the same wide smile as Reed… it all made sense. She just could not figure out why Rotti hadn't wanted her to know.

"I want to be a part of your life now," Reed went on, leaning forward in his seat. His gaze and voice never wavered. "I want to help you run GeneCo – that is, if you'll let me."

Oh, so _that_ was why Rotti had kept him away. Amber's eyes narrowed slightly, her muscles tense. "You don't care about me. You just want the money, the power – my _birthright._You want to hold the reins of the most powerful biotech company in the world and just let me be your damn poster girl."

"No, Amber, I—"

"I don't know how stupid you think I am, Reed, but I'm not giving you GeneCo just because you claim to be my fucking uncle. Thank you for collecting from Mercury – but I think it's about time for you to leave." She gestured to Reed's bag. "Leave those."

Reed swallowed and a muscle jerked in his jaw. He reached into a container and withdrew the testicles, setting them down on the desk in front of him. Eye contact with Amber was broken.

"Get the hell out of here," Amber said. "And while you're at it, go collect on the Adams account. Payment is past overdue."

Reed stood slowly and took his time walking over to the elevator. He knew better than to argue with a Largo. The elevator doors opened, and he stepped in, sighing. "You're making a big mistake, Amber."

"Don't think so," Amber said wryly. "I made the biggest mistake of my life a few weeks ago."

The elevator took Reed away. Amber reclined on the couch and wondered why all of her relations were so utterly abnormal.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Mercury Drake couldn't take one fucking step without screaming like a little bitch.

Nearly three weeks had passed since Reed had repossessed his testicles — _repossessed_, as though they had been taken because of a missed payment or something. Ridiculous, especially since Mercury had paid off all of his debt ages ago. The surgery had been for his liver, anyway.

That hadn't seemed to matter to Reed.

"Fuck with my niece again, and I'll _kill_ you," he'd hissed in Mercury's face as his scalpel severed nerves and tissues. Mercury had not even screamed — he was in too much shock to even comprehend what was happening to him, until he felt the blood running down his leg, and by then it had been too late.

His balls were gone, and Reed was Amber's uncle.

Fan-_fucking_-tastic.

Mercury sat in the stillness of his apartment, shivering slightly in the cold. Sometime last week, they'd cut the heat off because he had missed _that_ payment, and after that, his electricity had vanished, too. Life was awful now. He had made limited progress in adapting to his new "celibate" condition, but the total lack of sex drive threw him for a loop. He watched porn every night in an attempt to return to normalcy. Nothing happened. And he was in constant pain, too. Peeing, sitting, and squatting sucked, and masturbation was out of the question – not that he even had that desire any more. It would take a little more time for his brain to adjust to the handicap.

Mercury was sharpening his scalpel on a piece of metal as he sat, muttering to himself incomprehensibly. Every few strokes the scalpel would slip from the metal and nick his flesh. His fingers were cut and bleeding, but he could not feel a thing. He had his renewed addcition to Zydrate to thank for that.

Someone was going to pay, the way he had paid. Only he'd been punished for nothing at all. _His_revenge would have purpose, and justice would understand his motivation.

Reed's face flashed in his mind's eye, followed quickly by Amber's.

Someone was _definitely _going to pay.

* * *

"Really? That's all he said to you? Some surgeon."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but he didn't tell you everything." The Graverobber climbed out of his dumpster and sat beside Amber on the lid. He stared at her eyes first, not her stomach—either he didn't notice how it had swelled ever-so-slightly with the passing of the month, or it was just Amber's imagination that it had changed at all. "There are more side-effects to using while pregnant than weird-colored hair."

Amber frowned, dangling her legs off the edge of the dumpster. She had had a feeling Dr. Mathis had been patronizing her. "Like what?"

"Like blindness, deafness, missing limbs, epilepsy…" He rattled off the list and looked over at Amber. "I can go on, if you want."

"No, that's enough." He was right – unusual colors were now the very _least_of her concerns. Amber laid a hand on her stomach. "Holy shit, how come I never heard about that?"

"How many dealers in this would want hurt their business with hard facts?" the Graverobber countered, arching a dark eyebrow.

"Well, I just don't – wait, you _knew_about the side effects."

"Of course."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

He smirked at her. "As previously stated… scaring clients is bad for business."

She wanted to kill him then. She wanted to just throw herself at him and snap his neck before he even had time to blink. He hadn't warned her… _because he needed her to buy from him_? "That's the worst fucking thing I've ever heard."

"Well, yeah, it's the truth."

Amber slapped him. It took him less than two seconds to recover.

"Hey, come on. I'm not the bad guy, damn it. You got yourself into this mess." He pressed his fingers against his temples as though her mere presence had stressed him out – impressive, since the Graverobber was not easily stressed. His job required a high tolerance for it, after all.

She said nothing as he hopped down onto the concrete. Maybe slapping him had been going too far – he had a point, her pregnancy was her deal – "Wait, _you_ got me into this mess, too! It takes an egg _and_a sperm to produce a child!"

He stiffened at that, turning slowly to look up at her. "Amber… have you ever considered that it might not even be _mine?_ I know I'm not the only man you've slept with."

"What?" Everyone thought she was a slut. Even if she was, she was sick and tired of her reputation. Amber Sweet did _not_sleep around – she was actually very selective in her choices. Pavi, Luigi, Graverobber, and maybe once or twice, a one-night stand. That was it.

"I mean, what if it really _is_Luigi's?"

She had considered that already. "It can't be, Grave, I told you —"

"Kid." She was far from the child he had met all those years ago, the pure, innocent doll with the porcelain skin untainted by surgery and those endless green eyes. Amber was a woman now, just two years his junior—he supposed there had always been two years between them, but at first, he'd been _decades_ ahead of her. Hearing her use his nickname stuck him somewhere, stirred memories deep within his mind. Perhaps that was why his nickname for _her_had surfaced. The Graverobber sighed. "Damn it."

"I'm not a child anymore," she said petulantly. What game was he trying to play now? If he thought that belittling her was going to get him anywhere, he was sorely mistaken.

Instead of clarifying himself, all he gave her was that same damn smirk, that knowing smile that made her want to kill him and kiss him, all at the same time. It was the smile he reserved for special occasions, and it was deadlier and more deceptive than any weapon known to man.

"Don't sell me any more Z," Amber said softly, starting to slide off of the dumpster. Her dealer came over to help her down, still wearing that same dumb grin. She almost laughed at herself for what she said – they both knew it wasn't as simple as that. They both knew what they wanted. They both knew what happened every time she came down here.

"Whatever you say," the Graverobber said. His hands were still on Amber's waist. She curled her fingers into his, smiling back at him.

"I'm serious. I'm going cold turkey this time."

"Right." He chuckled lightly and leaned towards her. Too late, she realized her mistake – he was kissing her, and she was powerless to stop him—not that she _wanted _to stop him.

Amber kissed the Graverobber back with so much enthusiasm that she almost forgot she was living in hell.

* * *

Genetic Surgeon Morey Mathis was sitting in his living room enjoying a robust cup of coffee when an impatient series of knocks sounded at the front door. Morey set his mug down on the table beside him, clicked off the fire, and stood wearily. His bones ached as he walked – maybe he should have considered having a few things replaced during his last visit to the clinic – and he groaned all the way to the door.

_You stupid old man,_ he chided himself. _Not even sixty, and look at what a state you're in._By the time he opened the door, he thought his visitor would have given up on him.

He was wrong.

Morey stood face-to-chest with a livid Luigi Largo, who wasted no time in thrusting a switchblade at the surgeon's face. "May I come _in?"_ Luigi hissed, waving the blade under Morey's nose.

The surgeon swallowed. "Uh-um-uh-uh-um —"

Luigi brushed past him, the blade of his knife grazing Morey's arm. He reached behind Morey's back and locked the door. "I want to be left the fuck alone while I'm here. I'm sure you understand."

Morey was speechless.

A growl issued from Luigi's throat as he directed the knife at Morey's chest, backing him up against the wall. When he spoke, his voice was low and feral, sending chills down Morey's spine. "You know why I'm here, you useless fucker?"

"The a-a-article?" Morey stuttered, the last word coming out as a squeak.

Luigi's pressed the blade against the surgeon's neck. "That's f—ing right, doc. The article. I fucking _hate_it when people spill my secrets to the fucking _media_!"

Morey gasped as Luigi's knife pierced flesh, burying itself in the surface of Morey's skin. Blood welled to the surface and dripped down Morey's neck. "I'm s-s-sorry," he wheezed painfully as the blood bubbled up in his throat.

"No, you're not fucking _sorry_, and neither the fuck am _I!"_

Luigi plunged the knife all the way in, twisting it so that the blade severed Morey's jugular vein. Morey moaned in agony and scratched at Luigi's arms, but it was too late – the damage had already been done, and the wound was fatal.

Luigi sneered at Morey as the surgeon slumped to the floor, blood pouring from his wound without ceasing. His knife went down again – sliced flesh, punctured tissue, scraped bone. Morey's screams came out as wet gurgling sounds followed by coughing. Blood erupted from his mouth, too, spilling onto the floor with the rest from his knife wounds.

Luigi kicked Morey in the ribs and watching him convulse. He relished every cough, every gurgle, and every moan that came from Morey's throat. The surgeon's death throes were an extravagant delicacy for Luigi's eyes to feast upon – and feast on the sight he did. Every thrash and jerk was ecstasy-inducing, and the final breath that rattled from Morey's lungs was the finest music Luigi had ever heard.

On the way out, Luigi unlocked the door and left it open. Someone would eventually come along to clean up the mess.

* * *

Amber and Luigi stepped into the GeneCo tower elevator at precisely the same time. They peered at each other curiously, exchanging equally confused glances.

"Why do you smell like a fucking dead animal?"

"Why are you covered in blood?"

They rode to the top of the tower in silence because things were so much easier that way.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Weeks passed, as did months, just as everyone expected them to. Amber was now eighteen weeks along, well into her second trimester. She only knew this because of the calendar she kept on the computer in her office – now that Morey was dead, she had to keep track of everything herself. She had finally stopped having morning sickness, but she was putting on weight, so she wasn't sure that that had been a fair trade. In addition to gaining a few pounds, her pregnancy was visibly showing. What annoyed her the most about that was that she couldn't have any surgeries to flatten her stomach – Graverobber's warnings about Zydrate's side effects scared the shit out of her, and there was no way there were cutting her without Z.

Luigi was just as disagreeable as ever, and his mood swings were almost worst than Amber's. He'd suggested several different surgeons for Amber to go see, but when they went, he'd end up slitting their throats, just as he had slit Morey's throat, too. Thus, Pavi had begged Luigi to let Amber see Jolenia, and Luigi had actually accepted his proposition.

When Jolenia – a blonde bombshell of a gentern – wasn't examining Amber and monitoring her pregnancy, she could be found hanging off Pavi's arm, nothing unusual, save for the fact that she was usually alone. Could it be that Pavi had marked her as his favorite? She was quite the lucky broad – the middle Largo _rarely _took favorites. It was a wonder Luigi hadn't killed her off, too. He usually took great pleasure in mutilating Pavi's favorites.

Amber was reclining in the examination chair when Jolenia found the scar.

"Miss Sweet, what the hell is _this?"_

Her eyes fell on the spot that Jolenia had her hand on. She inhaled sharply, looking away. "I dunno. It's just a scar on my thigh, I guess."

"You guess?" Jolenia raised an eyebrow. "It looks like a _Zydrate_ scar to me.

"Using Z under my condition would be foolish and stupid, Jo. We both know that."

"We do, Miss Sweet, but I'd still like to run a test."

Amber reply was indignant. "No, absolutely not! I don't need the damn test, I told you — "

"Sister, what is-a the meaning of this?" Pavi asked as he entered the room, addressing Amber even though he was studying his reflection in his mirror. "Jolenia is only trying to help you. What has happened to upset you so?"

"She wants to run a fucking Zydrate test," Amber half-growled, half-mumbled, sliding her legs to the side so that her brother could sit down.

Pavi sat next to her and absently touched his face – her face, really. "And you won't let her because… ?"

"Because we both know what we'll find!" Amber yelled in frustration. "I'm still using Z, okay? It's not my fault – it's that damned Graverobber and his damn persuasive personality — "

"Regardless," Pavi said, "I have-a put her in charge of your medical affairs. You must cooperate, no?"

Amber groaned and crossed her arms. She pushed up the hem of her skirt and stared down at the offending scar. "Fine. Do whatever the hell you want, Jolenia."

"Thank you." She leaned down and kissed Pavi on the cheek. He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer, whispering something in her ear. Jolenia let out a scandalized gasp and playfully slapped him, then giggled. "Whatever you say, Mr. Largo. Just… let me finish up here first, okay?"

"_Si, si, si, bella._ But make it fast – the Pavi does not like to be kept waiting." He hopped down from the chair and picked the mirror back up, admiring his reflection even as he left.

Amber scoffed and rolled her eyes. "He's such a preening manwhore, I swear."

"And you're a scalpel slut," Jolenia retorted, going over to the counter and filling a syringe with a liquid Amber didn't recognize. The gentern flicked the needle and came over to Amber. "Lift your shirt. I need to stick this in your stomach."

"Oh, god, my _stomach_? And what the hell _is,_ that anyway?" Amber hesitantly pulled her shirt up to reveal the skin beneath. "Won't that hurt the baby?"

"It's novocaine, and no, it won't hurt the infant. I'm sticking it in your liver."

"In my – oh, no, you don't! I'm not doing this without some Z —"

"You can't have any Z, Miss Sweet," Jolenia remarked as she jabbed the needle into Amber's flesh and emptied the syringe. Amber gasped but had the sense not to tense up or squirm. "If I give you any Zydrate, it'll mess with the test. Novocaine is an outdated anesthetic, but it should do the job just fine."

"Damn it, I hate you. And I hate Pavi, too."

"You don't have to like me. You just have to let me treat you."

"At least you're consistent," Amber grumbled as Jolenia picked up another syringe and filled it with something yellow. The needle was longer on this one, but Amber didn't even flinch as Jolenia slid it into her liver. Novocaine wasn't much different than Zydrate, really, except it numbed just her stomach, instead of her whole body. There was also no accompanying pleasurable sensation to go along with the numbness. "Luigi annoys the hell out of me, too, but his mood swings are ridiculous."

"What about _your _mood swings?"

"I'm in denial. Pavi says I'm very unstable, and so does – so does everyone else, but I really don't feel very different."

"Hm." Jolenia pushed down on the end of the syringe, shooting the yellow liquid into Amber's liver. "Oh, this is altoria, by the way. It reacts violently when it comes in contact with Zydrate. If you've had any in the past month, you'll be vomiting left and right."

"You said I was done puking, Jo. In case you don't remember I – holy _shit, _what the _fuck… ?" _Amber shoved Jolenia away from her and clutched at her stomach. "Oh, god, oh my god, I think I'm going to – "

Amber turned her head and threw up in the sink.

Jolenia was lucky she hadn't had time to aim.

* * *

Reed Lorris dropped by Amber's office later in the day. He said nothing as he entered, business as usual, and dropped a bag of organs on top of her desk. Amber looked down at the bag, then up at him, and then back down at the bag. Her fingers skimmed over the surface of the frosted plastic.

"The Adams account," Reed explained. "Lungs and a kidney."

"Uh-huh, thank you." Amber handed the bag to one of her valets and told him to take it down to the biotech storage. She nodded to Reed and resumed working on her computer.

"Amber, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Look, you selfish piece of shit, I already told you – " A stricken look crossed her face. Amber swore and ran to the adjoining bathroom. Seconds later, the retching sounds she made led Reed to believe that she was throwing up. Must be that goddamned morning sickness. He'd heard pregnancy could be a bitch .

Amber eventually emerged from the bathroom looking pale and shaky. Her long black hair was plastered to her face with sweat. "I have nothing more to say to you, Reed. Please leave."

"I'm sorry about what happened the other day. I don't know what got into me, I must not have been thinking straight." Reed's voice was plaintive. "You're the heiress of GeneCo, and no one has the right to take that from you. Forgive me."

She studied him with a furrowed brow. Was he serious? "Well, you obviously want _something_, or else you wouldn't be here. If not GeneCo, then…?"

"You," he said simply. "I want to be in your life. I want to protect you, watch over you, and help you. Please."

Amber considered his request. She was a grown woman now – and had been, for quite some time. Luigi and Pavi offered her more protection than she could ever need. She was also the most powerful woman in the world, and if someone decided to mess with her, she could send a Repo after them. But she was also pregnant, restless, and alone. It wouldn't hurt to have at least _one _man on her side.

"All right," she conceded. "But on one condition."

"Yes?"

"If I tell you to get the hell out of my life, you _get the hell out, capice_?"

"Of course." Reed appeared immensely relived. His shoulder's relaxed and he smiled slightly, lowering his guard. "By the way, if you don't mind me asking, how's the pregnancy going so far?"

Her stomach turned. She fought the nausea. _Damn altoria's gonna be the death of me. _"Good. I'm in my second trimester. Almost nineteen weeks."

He nodded, and then looked confused. "Your morning sickness should be gone."

"What – oh, the whole vomit thing? Yeah… it's not morning sickness." She hoped to God he would have the sense not to press any further. It would be hazardous to his health to pry, that was just something he had to understand if their relationship was going to work. He was in her life, _fine_, but no way in hell was she going to be totally open with him.

"Oh. Well, I should be going. I need to go repossess a brain." He picked up his briefcase and walked to the elevator, nodding to Amber as the doors closed and the elevator began to descend.

Amber went back to her work.

* * *

Luigi was the next person to distract her, and when he came this time, he was not alone. "Look at the little shit I found digging around in our dumpster. I thought it was just another fucking scalpel slut, but then I took a closer look…" He shoved the young woman into the room.

Amber met the girl's eyes and nearly choked. "Shilo?"

She was the same young woman from the opera months ago, save for the face that she'd gained a little weight and chopped her wig into a bob. After Nathan Wallace had died, GeneCo had repossessed his house. Shilo had apparently been living on the streets ever since.

Shilo's eyes flashed. "Amber."

"What the fuck do you want me to do with her?" Luigi asked impatiently.

Amber drummed her fingernails against the desk, biting her lip. She regarded Shilo as one regards a strange sort of insect. "Leave her with me. I could use some company."

Luigi was dumbfounded. "You—you mean I can't kill her?"

"No, you knife-licking asshole, you can't kill her." She gestured to the couch. "Sit down, Shilo."

Luigi swore all the way to the elevator. Once he was gone, Shilo finally spoke.

"I'm a graverobber now, you know. I should've been shot on sight, right?" Her pale legs dangled over the edge of the couch. She was still so small. "What made you decide to let me live?"

"Because," Amber said, "I've been surrounded by nothing but men for months, and contrary to popular belief, they're all selfish bastards who just want to use me." She smiled at Shilo, leaning forward and propping her elbows on the desk. "You're not a man, so I figured, what the hell."

Shilo nodded. She ran a hand through her short, messy hair. "He says he's sorry, by the way. The Graverobber, I mean. He's sorry for being such an asshole."

Amber stiffened. "You've talked to him?"

Shilo spoke plainly as though Amber were retarded. "I've been living with him ever since you jacked my house."

Oh, god. That was definitely _not _what she'd wanted to hear. Amber stood and stared her guest down, letting her dark eyebrows descend in discontent. "You mean to tell me… the both of you… in that dumpster? It's pretty tight in there."

Shilo blushed. "It, um, that hasn't really been an issue."

"Oh, shit – you're _sleeping _together?" Amber asked before realizing how self-evident that sounded. "I mean, you… you've _done _it with him before?"

Her face reddened. "A couple times."

Amber shook her head in disbelief. On one hand, she was madder than hell because Graverobber was _hers _– and everything be damned if this _child _thought she could change that! But on the other hand… wow. She never thought the kid would've had it in her. Slowly, her expression changed from one of pain to one of – could that have been _pride? _"Well, well, congratulations, Shilo. I just hope he isn't as rough with you as he is with me. Are you usually sore afterward?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Shilo muttered, turning her face away so Amber wouldn't see her reaction.

Amber laughed loudly. Having Shilo Wallace as a houseguest was certainly going to be entertaining.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Three hours had passed since Shilo had left the dumpster, and Graverobber was beginning to worry. The kid was still fairly new to the way things worked on the streets, and up until a few days ago, he had prohibited her from even leaving the dumpster without his protection. She had argued that she was not a child anymore – she was a strong, intelligent young woman capable of getting herself out of trouble. Graverobber had conceded to her wishes after she had promised him something in return… but he was beginning to think agreeing had been a terrible idea. If something happened to Shilo because he'd let her go off on her own…

He would not feel a thing, would he? The thought annoyed the hell out of him, despite the fact that it was the truth. Sure, the Graverobber had grown rather accustomed to the teenager's presence these past several months, but still, he couldn't say he'd formed any sort of _real _attachment to her. Like every woman in his life, he held her at a distance – close enough to touch, yet too far away to hold onto for good. He'd done the same thing with Amber Sweet.

Graverobber rolled over in the dumpster and pushed the lid up to reveal the open air. He laid on his back and stared up at the sky. If the world had not been so damn screwed up, he could have seen some stars, but as things were, the city's pollution did an excellent job of obscuring the celestial bodies. It was almost funny to think that just four or five years ago, there were still a few stars blinking through the clouds. Amber had always loved stars.

If he thought hard enough – that is, if he closed his eyes and really concentrated – he could remember lying on a rooftop after Amber's fourth hit, her naked body curled against his chest with his foul-smelling coat draped over the both of them. It was the first time they'd had sex; the first time he had suggested anything other than credit in exchange for his Zydrate. The act had lasted much longer than he had expected it, and he had been surprised to find he actually _enjoyed _himself with her. She was different from the others – there was something about her that made him careless. Her fingers ghosted over his arm, and he forgot he had ever been numb to such a thing. They were both exhausted after the act, unable to do anything but lay next to each other on the roof of an old warehouse, staring up at the endless black sky.

"Daddy says there used to be more stars, but all the smog in the atmosphere wiped them all out," Amber had murmured contentedly. "He thinks that by the end of the decade, we won't be able to see any stars at all."

Graverobber had sighed, absently running his fingers through her (then) platinum hair. "Won't that be a shame."

"You don't sound so upset."

"I just think that, with all the shit going on in the world, if all we have to worry about is a few stars disappearing… I'd say we're pretty lucky, would not you?"

She had closed her eyes and lowered her voice. "Before my parents split up, my mother told me that when people die, their souls become stars in the night sky."

"Bullshit."

"Grave," Amber had whispered, her voice trembling as she spoke. "I think Daddy's sick, real sick. I think he's going to die someday soon."

Graverobber had held her as she cried. Then, they had both put their clothes back on, and she walked all the way back to the GeneCo Tower in the light drizzle that blanketed the city.

Yes, Amber had always been rather fond of stars, Graverobber mused, letting his thoughts drift back to the present. _If her beliefs haven't changed, then her father's a star now. How much does it hurt her not to be able to see him?_

He did not know what Shilo smelled like after a hard rain and a hit of Z. He did not know how many surgeries she had had, how much she had grown, or how her weight had changed. He did not even know much about her family. If she suddenly disappeared, if she was gunned down in the graveyard, or if she just did not come back to the dumpster, he would be considerably apathetic. But if something happened to Amber Sweet…

If something happened to Amber Sweet, his world would never be the same.

It was this realization that made the Graverobber smile in a way that suggested he had gotten the best surprise of his life. He sat up in the dumpster and wondered what to do with such a significant revelation. He had certainly never had an epiphany of this magnitude before. Would it be best to wait and see what happened from here on out, or was he just supposed to act?

Graverobber had never been good with waiting; therefore, he chose the second option.

* * *

Amber was fast asleep when Luigi crept into her bedroom. In all fairness, he had not expected her to be asleep – it was only nine o'clock after all – but he still felt somewhat guilty when she stirred and sat up in bed. "Who's there?" she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

Luigi ran his tongue over his teeth. "No one, slut. Go back to sleep."

"Luigi?" she persisted.

"Who else?"

Amber leaned over and clicked on the lamp. She squinted at him until her eyes adjusted to the light. "What do you want?"

"Hm? Oh… nothing." He reached back and massaged his neck. "I, uh, I was just wandering around and I thought I'd see what the hell you were up to." It was a terrible lie, he knew that, but it was all he could allow himself to give her.

She studied his face for a few moments, and then patted the edge of the bed. "Well, come sit, then. I guess it's too early for me to be sleeping, anyway."

Luigi sat. He said nothing.

"Something on your mind?"

There were actually a _thousand _things on his mind, but he could not bring himself to admit to any of them. Rotti had raised him to be tough, to conceal his thoughts and feelings with utmost care (except for anger, of course), and to never reveal his vulnerability. Luigi had lived this way for thirty-seven years. He was not about to change things now. "Yeah. Where the fuck is Pavi? I haven't seen that little shit in days."

Amber sighed softly. "He went somewhere with Jolenia, I dunno. Why do you care?"

"I was just curious, damn it. You planning on giving me the fucking third degree every time I open my mouth?"

"I'm sorry."

"The hell you are." Luigi crossed his arms over his chest and stared off into space. He could not bring himself to be anything but cruel to her, just as he was cruel to every other human being he came in contact with. He did not necessarily hate her so much anymore; he just could not bring himself to break character and show his sister a little compassion.

Amber lay back against the pillows, looking up at the ceiling. She did not know what the hell was going on, but Luigi was acting strange, and it unnerved her. He had not been himself since Pavi had told him she was pregnant. If only she could just hurry up and _have _the damn thing – maybe then everything would be back to normal.

A sudden thought crossed Luigi's mind. There was a way he could make it up to Amber, and it involved almost zero character-breakage. It would not really take much sacrifice on his part, either. He rose from the bed and walked out of the room without saying goodbye, not wanting to lose the idea before he had the opportunity to carry it out.

Amber sulked. Nothing seemed to be going well these days. It was this damn _baby's _fault, too; that much she knew for sure. How far along was she now, anyway? She consulted the calendar on her nightstand. Twenty-two weeks. Hell, no _wonder _she was so huge. If all went according to plan, she would pop the kid out at what, thirty-six weeks? Hm. That was still a long way off.

A thin strip of moonlight fell across the bed. Amber went over to the window and looked out over the city. Sanitarium Island was no cleaner than the rest of the world, but in the cloudless glow of the moon, it was almost beautiful. She rested her hands on her swollen stomach, pondering. Would her child be safe in such a tumultuous world? Would he – she had always thought of the baby as a he – inherit his father's smooth-dealing ways, his mother's addiction to surgery? Would he one day appreciate the hell Amber had put herself through for him, or would he take life for granted, just as Amber always had? These were some sobering thoughts.

It was then than a faint blue glow from an adjacent rooftop snapped Amber out of her reverie. There was someone standing on the roof – a man – and he seemed to be waving a handful of blue vials at her. Amber leaned forward against the glass… her stomach touched first. She frowned, remembering the baby. Her fingers found the switch to lower the blinds. No more Z while she was pregnant. No more, no more, no more.

What was he thinking, anyway, standing on the building right _beside _GeneCo? Did he not understand how close he was to death? All someone had to do was give the order and he would be facedown on the concrete with a bullet in his head. Luigi was already angry – _and _his bedroom faced the building, too. The Graverobber was as good as dead.

The question nagged her again. Why was he doing this?

She managed to talk herself into raising the blinds again, but that was mostly due to the fact that her curiosity was getting the better of her. Amber laid her hands on her stomach as she watched him this time, reminding herself what was at stake if she screwed up.

The Graverobber stopped waving the bottles around and held a hand up in greeting. She had apparently been spotted. Amber let the blinds fall closed again, her heart pounding as she debated whether to go out or not. On one hand, the Graverobber was stubborn – if she did not go out there now, he was more than likely to take more drastic measures to get her attention. On the other hand, it was getting late, and if Luigi caught her going outside this time of night, there would certainly be hell to pay. And there was always the chance that Shilo – asleep on the couch in the living area – would be woken up as Amber passed and demand to know where she was going.

Amber decided she would go outside to see what he wanted. She was afraid she would give in to his low, persuasive voice, but then the baby kicked, and she realized that she _was _strong enough to resist his charms – for both her sake and the sake of her unborn child.

Seriously, though – what the _hell _was he doing out there?

Amber slipped into her maternity-wear black trenchcoat and ran her fingers through her hair to comb out the tangles. A quick swipe of lipstick, some mascara, and a pair of black flats, and she was ready to head out the door. The GeneCo elevator took her swiftly down to the bottom of the building before Luigi had time to take any notice of it. She stepped out of the elevator and walked out the front door, slipping the guards outside a considerable amount of credit guaranteed to keep them quiet.

The streets were dark and unusually warm, and Amber found herself wishing she had put on a light jacket rather than a heavy coat. A familiar excitement flooded her veins as she made her way across the street to the abandoned warehouse that had once housed freezers full of GeneCo parts. Graverobber had picked a winner – he was standing on the same rooftop that they had first slept together on. They had had sex, talked about the stars and about life and death, and then he had given her a hit and sent her away. He thought she had walked home all by herself, but the truth of the matter was, Pavi had been waiting for her just outside the alley. Pavi had always been there for her.

The Graverobber's head emerged from one of the third-story windows. "Up here, Amber. Take the elevator."

She nodded and followed his directions. The third floor of the warehouse was nothing but a big, open loft, lit by moonlight that filtered in through several large skylights. Graverobber had somehow lit the dozens of candles glowing around the loft, and the thought made Amber smile. Perhaps he was not as apathetic as he appeared.

The Graverobber himself sat on a soft mat in the middle of the floor. He was surrounded by a circle of little glass vials, all of them glowing a beautiful, spellbinding blue. He sat with his legs folded over each other, like a yoga master, resting his hands on his thighs. He smirked at Amber as she walked towards him, but this smirk was different than the kind she was used to. _This _smirk suggested he was pleasantly surprised to see she had come, and it was a welcome change from the kind Amber usually received from him.

Amber self-consciously swept her bangs back from her face, having almost forgotten what it felt like to be stared at so admiringly. Pregnancy seemed to make her unattractive to everyone else – but, then again, Graverobber was a far cry from everyone else. She spoke with a soft, almost demure voice – a voice that proved to both of them that there was more to their relationship than met the eye. "What's all this, Grave?"

He reached up and took her hands, gently tugging on her fingers. "Sit."

She did as he bade her, smiling. "Okay, now what?"

"Close your eyes."

Amber raised an eyebrow. "Grave… no Z, promise? It'll hurt the baby."

"The surprise isn't a hit, I promise," he replied matter-of-factly.

"If you say so." Amber let her eyelids fall closed, a light breath escaping from her parted lips. The silence in the room was as deafening as the Graverobber's presence was intoxicating. When a decent amount of time passed without anything happening, Amber was almost tempted to open her eyes – but then she felt his rough lips on hers and let out a small cry of surprise before kissing him back cautiously. She did not mind playing with fire every once in a while, but no way in hell was she going to let herself get burned.

He kissed her once more and pulled away. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, but he only kissed her on the cheek and rested his chin in the crook of her neck.

Amber sighed, opening her eyes to peer curiously at him. "What's wrong with you?"

Graverobber's voice rumbled against her skin. "Nothing's wrong."

"Well, why won't you kiss me, then?" Amber demanded. "We never stop making out until one of us needs to come up for air."

She felt his breath against the side of her face. "Maybe I don't just want to make out with you tonight, Amber. It's not about the sex this time."

"I can't believe that." She splayed her hands against his chest, drawing in his body heat through the tips of her long fingers. "It's _always _about the sex."

"Yeah, well, not this time," he replied curtly. "If I wanted sex, don't you think I would've helped myself to one of the thousands of desperate scalpel sluts at my disposal?"

He had a point. "Well, what do you want, then?"

Graverobber leaned back so that they faced each other again. His hands slid up to meet Amber's, and he spoke to her, his gaze intense. "I realized that I _care _about you, Amber Sweet. You have no idea how much that scares the shit out of me, but it's the truth, and I'm accepting it." He pressed his mouth to her forehead, murmuring against her skin. "I'm accepting my responsibility now. I want to be there for you – and the baby – whenever you need me."

Amber could not believe what she was hearing.

Unfortunately, neither could Luigi, who had just emerged from the warehouse elevator, carrying a bouquet of roses in his right hand.

"What the _fuck_ is going on here?"

Amber and the Graverobber froze.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

"I _said,_what the fuck is going on here?"

Amber felt shaken to the core. Cold sweat beaded on her skin, and her hands were numb to the Graverobber's touch. Her ears roared, her eyes stung, and she swore she was about to black out. Graverobber was not doing much better – he was trying to whisper something to her, but she could not understand him. Her mind was absolutely paralyzed.

"_Am I speaking fucking _Korean_?"_

She understood Luigi just fine. She just could not think of anything she could say that could possibly rectify the situation.

Luckily, the Graverobber had a very high tolerance for stress. He recovered quickly and spoke first. "I was advising Miss Sweet about the dangers of using Z in her condition."

"The fuck you were," Luigi hissed. "It looked like you were about to fucking _eat each other's faces!"_ He was breathing hard now, clenching the bouquet of roses so tightly that he crushed them, sending flower petals fluttering to the floor. The color of the roses was the same shade as Luigi's face.

For the first time, Amber noticed the bouquet. She swallowed and remarked on it, surprised her voice did not come out as a croak. "Are those _roses?"_

He stiffened, tightening his hold on the roses. More petals dropped and scattered around his feet. "Yes," he spat through gritted teeth, "they are_._"

A whole new sense of bewilderment came over Amber, accompanied by a familiar feeling foreign to this kind of situation – a feeling she could only reluctantly identify as being flattered. Luigi had never done something so nice for her. She bit her lip. "Are those for me?"

"They fucking _were._"

Graverobber squeezed her fingers so hard it hurt, and she nearly cried out from the pain, but she knew he had done it to snap her out of her trance, so she was grateful. Their gazes met and she felt somewhat better knowing she had his support. And Amber said, "Luigi, I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

Luigi snorted. "It's no surprise. I always knew you were fucking a graverobber, I just never knew which bastard it was."

If Graverobber was offended, he did not show it. "This bastard used to be her dealer, too – meaning I've probably gotten some of what you thought only you had access to."

"Why, you smooth-talking son of a bitch—"

When Luigi released the bouquet, Amber knew something terrible was about to happen. It was not until the blade of his knife flashed that she screamed, however, and shoved the Graverobber behind her. "Stay the hell away from him, Luigi."

"Why the fuck should I? You're supposed to be _off_fucking Zydrate, and this dickhead just admitted to selling it to you!"

Graverobber said flatly, "_Used to_ sell to her, actually."

Luigi ignored him, taking a few more menacing strides towards the couple. His knife glinted in the moonlight – and Amber was not sure she viewed the light as beautiful anymore. "You're _not _sabotaging my fucking child, Amber. It's bad enough you got knocked up – it took me a hell of a long time to learn to accept that. The _least_you could do is suck it up and _have_ the damn thing – and you better fucking believe no kid of mine will be missing limbs because of _your_fucking _addiction!"_

"It's _not_your fucking baby!" Graverobber shouted before Amber could stop him. "It's _never_been your kid – _I'm_the one who got Amber pregnant!"

Luigi's eyes widened, his jaw going slack. The knife fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. He felt like he had been punched in the gut. Was it true? Had this man seriously fathered the baby Luigi had seen all along as his own? He let his gaze fall on Amber, curious and pleading.

Amber had never seen her brother so flabbergasted. She was not sure what to say, so she admitted her guilt and the lie that had created it. "Luigi," she murmured, "it's true." She touched her stomach. "Graverobber's the one who knocked me up. I was too ashamed to tell you."

The Graverobber was, once again, not offended.

Luigi released a shaky breath as all of the color drained out of his face. "Oh my fucking _God_," he whispered. "Holy, holy fuck." He shook his head in disbelief before drilling Amber with an inquisitive gaze. "How could you do this to me?"

"I said I was sorry—"

"Yeah, well, sorry doesn't change the fact that I – oh, fuck it – _love_ you, princess. I came here to give you the roses and tell you everything because I've been such a total dick these past few days," Luigi confessed. "What the hell am I supposed to do now, Amber? How do you expect me to feel?"

She knew there was no way to justify her actions. Amber realized suddenly that this huge injustice had been _her_fault; that every maligning incident that had happened up to this point had happened because of her own selfish ignorance. As she was struck by this epiphany, she understood that having a baby really _was_ starting to change her – perhaps she was even finally starting to grow up. Her father would have been proud, but that thought did nothing to comfort her.

Graverobber stood and brushed himself off, shrugging back into his coat and making his way over to the elevator. "If you'll excuse me," he drawled, "I have to go to work now."

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Amber snapped.

He looked at her as though she were retarded. "I told you, to _work._"

"Oh, no, you don't – this involves you as much as it does the two of – "

"Go on," Luigi broke in. "_She's _the one who screwed me over."

"But Luigi – "

"Shut up, whore. He's just another victim of your hateful, selfish scheme."

Amber had nothing to say to that. She watched the Graverobber as he left, and could not help noticing he never once acknowledged her with his eyes, even when the elevator doors began to close. It was no secret that she deserved the inattention, but it still hurt just the same.

Several agonizing minutes passed before Luigi was able to speak to her again. "I'd rather you just stay in this fucking warehouse all night, but you still have that damn baby – ah, who the hell am I kidding? I don't give a shit anymore." He bent over and picked up the knife. The toe of his boot came down on what remained of the bouquet of roses, crushing them beyond recognition. "It's not my kid, after all. Maybe you'll get lucky and the _real_father of the baby will feel sorry for you, or maybe not. _He_ probably doesn't give a shit about you, either."

Amber felt a nausea not unlike morning sickness roiling in her gut. If she did not get out of here soon, she was going to throw up. Luigi needed to move out of the way and let her onto the elevator.

Luigi turned away from her and pressed the DOWN button for the elevator. There was a _ping_as it arrived and the doors slid open – a _ping_that sounded remarkably like _pink_, which was the color that had gotten Amber into this mess in the first place. She felt bile climbing the back of her throat.

"Luigi."

"Don't start," he said, his voice lower and colder than Amber had ever heard it. His back was still turned to her. "And you know what else?" He stepped into the elevator, finally facing her with a penetrating gaze. "Fuck you, Amber Sweet. _Fuck you._"

The doors slid shut. Amber felt tears well up in the dam behind her eyes, the dam that threatened to break at any given time.

* * *

Luigi, true to his word, had somehow managed to break the elevator so that it could not ascend to the third floor. Amber was stuck in the warehouse for the remainder of the night – and probably for the next day, considering the depth of Luigi's anger.

She had somehow managed to fall asleep lying on her side, curled up on the mat the Graverobber had laid down earlier. Little glass vials filled with blue promises were strewn all around the room, but Amber no longer had the desire to touch them, let alone put them in a gun and inject them. She was still sick to her stomach – extreme guilt could do that to a person – and on top of that, she was freezing. This was one of the chilliest fall evenings she had ever experienced.

For the first hour or so of her isolation, she had entertained the notion that the Graverobber would at least return to collect his Z, if nothing else. She wondered if he might fix the elevator for her, even though she had made as much a pawn of his as she had her own brother. Then, she realized what an idiotic notion that was, and slowly gave into the idea that she would be spending the night on the floor of this godforsaken warehouse, alone with her thoughts and the repercussions of her actions.

Amber had just fallen into a deep sleep when the sound of shattering glass jerked her back into reality. She tried to sit up, but her stomach was too big, so the only thing she managed to do was raise herself up on her elbows. Judging from the breeze that blew into the loft, a window had been broken somewhere –

She twisted her head around and found herself in the presence of a blind, powerful, incensed Mercury Drake, clad in his dark red Repo Suit – sans mask, so that she could make out every detail of his face, even in the dim glow of the moon. Every fiber of her being tensed. How had Mercury managed to find her? "Hello, Amber," he hissed so menacingly that a chill rippled down Amber's spine. "You took something of mine, so I came here to take something of yours."

It was then that she noticed the long scalpel he held in his clenched fist.

"I think it's only fair… don't _you_?"


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

The struggle lasted less than five minutes.

Amber rolled to the side as Mercury lunged at her with scalpel in hand. She screamed and kicked him in the stomach as she tried to dodge him, but he was hardly affected by the blow. Thanks to a rush of adrenaline, Amber managed to stagger to her feet. Mercury growled at her and backed her up against the elevator.

"I followed your friend's voice," he whispered, extending the blade of the scalpel towards the soft flesh of Amber's neck. "I scaled the side of the building and broke the window, expecting to see a graverobber." A deep chuckle tumbled from his lips. "Imagine what a pleasant surprise it was to find myself not only surrounded by Zydrate, but in the same building as Amber Sweet, the woman who destroyed my life and my reputation."

Amber was so terrified that she was _not_ terrified. She was still slightly nauseated, but the current situation was so frightening and so unreal that the reality of it all had yet to set in. That was a mixed blessing – she would not be able to save herself because she was not able to think clearly, but she supposed she would at least die in a state of numbness.

"You'll feel everything," Mercury breathed in a voice that belonged to a monster. "I'm good at what I do. I know how many cuts you can make before a body fails."

The ripped Amber's flesh, and she gasped.

Her fingers drifted to the DOWN elevator button and depressed it. Mercury took the scalpel and dragged it down across Amber's collarbone – towards her heart. Before he could finish her off, the doors to the elevator slid open –

Too late, Amber remembered that the elevator itself was out of order and stuck on the first floor of the building. Mercury stepped forward; Amber staggered backwards and tumbled into the darkness of the elevator shaft.

Mercury tossed the scalpel down after her. Not exactly how he had imagined her death, but watching her fall down the shaft seemed to appease him all the same.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

When Amber awoke, she was almost certain she had died – until she looked around and realized that her surroundings were too dark to be heaven and too cold to be hell. Also, if she were dead, she supposed she would not be in as much pain as she was. Her entire body burned, her bones ached, and blood was still flowing from the deep wound caused by Mercury's scalpel. Her mind was so clouded she could hardly think straight, and her stomach was cramping so badly she cried out a string of obscenities. Her back hurt, too – and her thighs were wet.

Amber gasped. Her water had broken. Her thighs were covered in blood and amniotic fluid.

_Fuck!_

She grabbed one of the cables hanging down into the shaft and tried to pull herself up. A white-hot knife of pain sliced across her hips. Amber swore and gave up the effort, slumping over on the floor. She supposed she should have been thankful that she had not broken anything, but all she could think about was the pain, Mercury's wound, the baby –

"Oh, shit. The _baby._"

She had gone into premature labor. Falling into the shaft had injured or killed the child, and now her body was going to spontaneously abort the fetus. It would hurt like hell, and even if the baby were only injured, it would never be able to survive. Amber thought about this and felt sick. Seconds later, she doubled over and vomited on top of the elevator, her whole body trembling in pain as she did so.

She could cry all she wanted to, but no one would hear her. She could scream all she wanted to, but no one would come to rescue her.

Amber sank to her knees and moaned, screwing her eyelids shut. Luigi had meant for her to suffer, but surely he had not had something like _this _in mind. He could never haveanticipated Mercury showing up – as heartless as her brother was, she knew he would never send a Repo Man after her, especially one that seemed intent on having his revenge on her.

She was sorry for everything she had done now. She wanted to take it all back, erase all of her mistakes; go back in the past and make sure everything would turn out all right. The hellish mess her life had become had taught her that she had a lot of growing up to do, and now that she understood that, she realized how absolutely foolish she had been to screw up her life as badly as she had.

Amber wanted to die. She wanted someone to kill her; she wished Mercury had succeeded. Maybe she would be lucky and bleed to death on top of this elevator, before she had to go through the hell of having to give birth to a doomed infant. Her desperate eyes fell on the scalpel lying in the corner of the space. It was the same scalpel Mercury had used to wound her – maybe now, she could use it to put an end to her suffering.

She tried to crawl towards it and screamed in agony, clutching at her ruined stomach. Death would be a welcome reprieve, but there was no way in hell she would be able to make it over to the scalpel before the baby dropped. On top of that, her neck was still bleeding. Her vision was getting fuzzy on the edges, and she was feeling pretty dizzy.

Amber promised any god that would listen that if someone came to save her, she would never have sex with the Graverobber again.

A fresh tide of blood slipped from between Amber's leg, accompanied by a spurt of amniotic fluid. Amber winced and felt herself slipping from consciousness as her body was rocked by another contraction.

She was going to die in this damn elevator shaft, and absolutely _no one _was going to miss her.

* * *

Pavi Largo had never considered himself a saint. Far from it – he thought of himself as self-love and lust incarnate, the human form of vanity and utmost arrogance. He had a different woman every week, each in a different way than the last, except for Jolenia because she was the most perfect being in existence – well, after the Pavi, of course. That was why he had taken her away from Sanitarium Island for a few days. No one else had gotten to take a trip to the mainland in the private GeneCo yacht.

No, he had never fancied himself a saint, but that is precisely what he became the minute he stepped into the abandoned parts warehouse.

Pavi had been sound asleep after a nighttime romp with his favorite gentern when Jolenia nudged him awake. "There's an obnoxious mewling sound coming from that warehouse over there," she complained sleepily. "I think someone needs to go down there and put the animal out of its misery."

Pavi had turned over and tried to shrug the matter off, but Jolenia persisted, throwing the cover's back to expose Pavi's legs to the autumn chill in the room. He shivered. "Fine. If the Pavi finds a way to-a stop it, will you let him rest in peace?"

Jolenia smiled. "Of course, Mr. Largo."

He was out of bed, dressed, and in the warehouse in a matter of minutes. The sooner he checked out the screaming, the sooner he could go to bed. And the sooner he went to bed, the sooner he would wake up with Jolenia in his arms… and they would have crazy morning sex just like they had for the past eleven months.

_Vanity & Vein _had dubbed him a nympho. He liked to think of himself as a man of strong, insatiable passions; a man who appreciated the all pleasures of life.

Once Pavi stepped into the warehouse, he knew something was wrong. The air was tinged with the iron reek of blood, and if he listened closely, he heard that damn mewling sound Jolenia had been complaining about. It was faint, but definitely there. The gentern had the ears of a graverobber.

The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere upstairs. Pavi walked over to the elevator and jabbed the UP button with his pinky, and the doors opened, but the elevator car refused to move. "That is-s strange," he murmured absently.

A bloodcurdling scream punctuated the damp air of the warehouse. Pavi recognized the cry of someone in a torturous deal of pain – women tended to scream like that when their faces were being cut off. He stood inside the elevator car, puzzled.

There was a _thump_ above his head. Then, silence.

This is where Pavi received his sainthood. After the silence had carried on for a minute or two, he decided he needed to investigate, so he reached up and began to probe the roof of the elevator for a latch. He finally found in, the door dropped open, and Pavi jumped up to grab the edge. Despite his lack of upper body strength – with his busy social calendar, the Pavi simply did _not _have the time to work out – he pulled himself up through the roof and onto the top of the elevator.

He then realized what had made all the noise.

Amber Sweet lay in a puddle of blood and… some clear fluid Pavi could not identify. Blood dripped from a wound on her neck and chest, and some of it seemed to be flowing from her –

Pavi's breath caught in his throat, and his body began to tremble.

His sister had had her baby, but it was only a baby in the basest sense of the word. It looked more like an organ transplant gone bad than anything else – all red and blue and swollen. Born too soon, expelled from the womb before its time, it was tiny and slick with what Pavi now knew to be amniotic fluid. The umbilical cord was still attached, but it was no longer supplying life-giving blood and nutrients to the infant. There was simply no need for that anymore – the tiny lips had never parted in a wailing gasp, and now they never would. It was apparent by the swollen, discolored skin and the bruises marring the little body that the child had been injured and entered the world stillborn.

Pavi Largo had seen many terrible things in his life, but this was by far the most horrifically damning. At the sight of this baby – at the sight of the corpse – something inside of him tore. He fell to his knees at his sister's feet and unabashedly began to weep bitterly.

Amber laboriously lifted her head towards the source of the noise and found herself sitting beside her brother. She tried to talk to him, but she was too weak to think of anything to say, and she was still losing blood…

She had never seen her brother cry before. Not even at their parents' divorce trial or their father's funeral had he managed to shed a single tear. Something must have seriously upset him.

And then Amber's heart stopped. "Pavi," she said with difficulty, in a small, shaky voice that could not possibly be her own. "Where's my baby?"

He shook his head and dissolved into tears again, and Amber just _knew _that her worst fears had been realized. "I… I want to see him," she added weakly. For the first time, for the last time, she wanted to see for herself the poor life that had suffered at her expense; the soul that had so soon returned to heaven before it had a chance to express itself on Earth. Amber told herself that if she just _saw _it, coping with its death would be so much easier…

Pavi gestured to a bloody mass between her knees. Amber looked.

She fainted from sheer mental anguish. Pavi could not blame her. He shrugged his dinner jacket off and draped it over the stiff little body, wrapping up every limb and pulling the infant into his arms.

He held the child – a boy that had every right to be alive – and sobbed over it until the ambulance arrived to take him and his sister away.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Amber Sweet was no stranger to the hospital. Sanitarium Island General oversaw all of the surgeries that her private surgeons were unable to carry out, and thus, she was fairly well-acquainted with the hospital layout and staff. When her eyes finally opened, she knew exactly where she was – she just could not understand how she had gotten there. The fluorescent light panels on the ceiling above her provided just enough light to nearly render her blind as she struggled to open her eyes. She squinted against the harsh illumination and tried her best to decipher her surroundings.

The room was small and private, with a single hospital bed and a flat-screen television monitor mounted to the wall. Adjacent to the bed was a small chrome nightstand; resting on top of the nightstand, a chrome lamp. Now that she thought about it, Amber realized that there was chrome _everywhere_ – even the sliding door leading into what she assumed to be the bathroom was made out of the shiny metal. The walls of the room were a stark, crisp white that matched the color of the sheets covering Amber's legs. The floor tiles were a black-and-white checkerboard pattern that made her dizzy to look at, so she focused her attention on determining what machines they had her hooked up to this time.

A familiar series of _beeps _assured her that her heart was in working order. The heart monitor showed the rise and fall of her steady pulse in a thin green line that rose and fell with each significant palpitation – much like Amber's own chest rose and fell with each easy breath.

Amber noticed she could hear herself breathing. She reached up to touch her mouth and her fingers brushed against an oxygen mask instead. A frown creased her forehead. If the medical staff did not even think she could breathe on her own… how badly was she hurt?

Another inhalation of the pure oxygen brought all the tragic events rushing back to her mind – Luigi. Graverobber. The warehouse. Mercury. The elevator shaft. Her baby – her _baby_.

She ripped the mask off of her face and let it fall onto the bed.

Amber gasped and threw back the covers. Her thin, fragile body was wrapped up in a light gray hospital gown that clung to her swollen stomach, a stomach that was no more than a stomach anymore; no longer a sacred vessel to carry an innocent soul safely into the real world. Pinpricks of light danced before her eyes as she swung her legs off the side of the bed and tried to stand. Her legs buckled immediately, and darkness swarmed her vision as she went down. Luckily, she managed to catch herself on an IV stand before any real damage could be done. It was only once she felt a biting tug as the needle ripped out of her flesh that she realized the IV had been connected to her.

The horizon tipped violently, sending the room hurtling into a whirling vortex that threatened to drag Amber back into unconsciousness. She turned her head and threw up before she knew it was coming. Now not only was she a pale, shaky mess, but the front of her hospital gown was covered in vomit, too. Amber moaned and wiped her mouth, launching into a coughing fit. What the hell was wrong with her?

Just when Amber thought she was going to have to face this shit alone, a familiar-looking surgeon waltzed into the room, flanked by two unremarkable genterns. She perked at the sight of the surgeon, knowing full well that if there was anyone in the world who would see to it that Mercury got what he deserved, it would be Dr. Reed Lorris – or _Uncle_ Reed Lorris. Whatever. Amber gripped the edge of the bed and struggled to pull herself up, but Reed adamantly shook his head. She stayed down.

Reed's face was drawn and haggard as he knelt beside his niece. The pages on his clipboard were flipped to Amber's medical charts, and he did not like what he saw, damn it. She did not look well on paper or in person, and he was worried about her condition. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've gone to hell and barely made it out alive," Amber grunted. "How do you think I feel?"

He shined a pen light into her eyes. "Well, you don't have a concussion, which is excellent, and we managed to stanch the bleeding from the wound in your neck. It's sewn up now and should heal quite nicely." Reed lowered his voice, leaning closer to her. "The cut was made by a scalpel, wasn't it?"

Her expression darkened. "Mercury."

Reed changed so extremely in the space of a second that Amber swore he had been possessed. His voice became deeper and more gravelly; a rough, grating sound that made Amber shiver involuntarily. Nathan Wallace was the only man whose voice she had known to change so drastically. "I'll tear that bastard apart," Reed growled menacingly.

Amber made no move to stop him. She was still amazed that Mercury had even managed to find her without the use of his eyes, let alone jab a scalpel into her neck and push her down an elevator shaft. In the heat of the fight, she had feared his intentions were to forcibly remove the baby from her stomach – to cut it out of her while she was forced to watch. Well, Mercury _had _managed to kill the infant – not directly, but still, Amber refused to place the blame on anyone else. But she also remembered what Mercury's motive to kill her had been. "Reed," she said eventually. "He wanted to get back at _you_."

Reed's face went from bright scarlet to pale alabaster in the space of a millisecond. "Oh, _fuck_. Amber – shit, this was all my fault." He bowed his head and sighed wearily, his shoulders lifting and settling back down with the exhalation. "Oh, God, I am so, so sorry. I can't believe…"

As his voice trailed off, Amber laid a hand on his arm. It was warm, even through the material of his doctor's coat and scrubs. Months ago, she would have simply and selfishly hated Reed for what he had done to her. She never would have been able to forgive him, let alone stop feeling sorry for herself long enough to understand that everything happened for a reason. Months ago, she never would have said, "I know, Reed. You didn't know that was going to happen. It's all right, I forgive you." But having a baby in her body had changed things.

"You do?" Reed asked, lifting his head to look at her. "I mean, I'd understand if you didn't. You got hurt, and the baby—"

"The baby." Amber remembered then the misshapen form of her infant, still and small and apparently stillborn. She remembered her brother – her guardian angel – Pavi, weeping over the baby's dead body. Her eyes met Reed's and filled with tears. She wanted to ask him what they had done to the corpse, but she could not bring herself to voice her concerns. "Where's Pavi?" Amber asked instead.

"He's sitting in the waiting room. Jolenia's there, too."

"And Luigi?"

"Luigi brought Jolenia, but then, he disappeared." Reed shrugged. "He looked pretty pissed off, but I bet he looks that way all the time, doesn't he?"

Amber chuckled darkly. Her stomach was killing her, and her legs ached. A sharp pain knifed between her legs whenever she moved, reminding her of the life that had been lost. Tears blurred her vision and slipped down her cheeks. She made no move to brush them away.

In a surprising move that Amber really should have probably expected, Reed pulled her into his arms and let her cry on his shoulder, not caring that she would soak his fresh-pressed surgeon's coat. She was his niece, whether Rotti had wanted her to know that or not, and now, she needed to know she had someone on her side. After the hellish agony she had been through, Reed knew she needed someone to protect her now more than ever. His friend, Nathan Wallace, had often extolled the virtues of paternity to Reed, but he could have never imagined the surge of affection he suddenly felt for the broken GeneCo heiress. It was the kind of affection that made one consider sacrificing oneself; the kind of unwavering devotion that merited total vengeance upon those that sought to shatter the bond.

Mercury Drake _had _to die. Reed would not rest until the bastard's blood was on his scalpel.

When Amber had quieted down, Reed pulled away and said, "If you think you're feeling up to visitors, I could send your brother and his gentern in."

Amber sniffed. "Thank you."

He nodded and touched her arm, rising from the floor and walking out of the room. Amber was grateful she had given him a second chance.

* * *

By the time Pavi and Jolenia finally made it to the room, Amber was lying in bed, sound asleep. Pavi wanted to wake her up and ask her how she was feeling, but Jolenia insisted they let her sleep. She had just been through a very traumatic experience, after all, and she needed time to heal.

Pavi took Jolenia by the hand and led her over to the window. Far below them, a massive crowd of Internews reporters and television news anchors eagerly awaited an appearance from Amber Sweet. Seeing Pavi Largo seemed to agitate the crowd, but Pavi did not so much as wave to the frantic media. "It makes-a the Pavi sick," he said, "knowing they-a see this situation as-a nothing but a big story."

Jolenia squeezed his hand, kissing him on the cheek. "It's all right, Mr. Largo. Amber's become so much stronger in these past several months. I'll be shocked if she doesn't through this okay."

There would probably be a thousand others that would express such a sentiment to Pavi, but none of the others would ring as true with him as Jolenia had. He had always prided himself on his lack of commitment – he enjoyed fling after fling, countless one-night stands with strangers whose names he had never learned, and never entering a covenant of marriage until he could find a woman willing to be a part of his exclusive harem. He would never be able to settle down, and for Jolenia's sake, he wished he could change. He – the Pavi! Absolute perfection! And yet, he wanted to become a better man for her. He wanted to become the man she deserved.

Maybe _that_ was what love was about.

"_Bella, mio amore," _Pavi whispered, "when we return to the tower, I would like-a to discuss our future together."

Jolenia understood the gravity of what he was saying. Her eyes widened, and a grin split her face. She kissed him eagerly, pulling away only when she realized that Amber was staring at the both of them.

"Pavi," Amber said. "Jolenia. Hey."

Pavi stepped away from Jolenia and approached Amber's bed. He lowered his androgynous frame onto the mattress and grabbed his sister's hands. "The Pavi… he is speechless. Just to see you alive – my God – to see you safe and whole and healing…" He shook his head and turned his face away. Amber knew he was crying. "I am so very sorry, sister. Your hurt is-a the Pavi's hurt."

Her eyelids were heavy. That was probably due to whatever drugs they had her on. She let them fall closed and relaxed against the pillows. A faint smile turned her lips. "You don't need to be sorry for anything, Pavi. You saved my life." He would never understand how much he meant to her, no matter how desperately she tried to explain it to him. He was the kind of guardian that some might take for granted. Amber herself was eternally grateful for every minute they shared together.

"We have-a come a long way, no?"

"What do you mean?"

"You, Luigi, and-a the Pavi… we are no longer out to kill each other," Pavi clarified. "We are more like-a siblings. Father would be pleased."

Amber reflected on Pavi's words. It was true – they really _had _come a long way since the day of their father's funeral. Rotti Largo had doubtless anticipated Amber getting knocked up at _some _point in time, but he never could have forseen the positive effect the pregnancy would have had on the relationship among his children. Looking back now… Amber wondered how she could have ever wished the baby away. Twenty-two weeks had changed her life.

As had always been the case, whenever she thought of the baby, she thought of the graverobber, and immediately regretted allowing her mind to go down that path of association. She had ruined her chances with him. She had ruined her _everything _with him. There was no point in thinking about him anymore—

"I almost forgot," Pavi broke in. "There is-a someone… waiting to see you. He is out in the hallway."

Amber's eyelids flew open. "Who is it?"

Just as Pavi opened his mouth to reply, the visitor himself stepped into the room with a grace no one had expected at a time like this. The Graverobber was just as beautiful as Amber remembered him – minus his damn trademark smirk, of course. He had even worn the foul-smelling coat. She couldn't help smiling.

"Hello, Grave."

"Hey yourself, kid." He and Pavi exchanged significant glances. Pavi rose from the bed and collected Jolenia before slipping out of the room to allow the couple some privacy. The Graverobber sat next to Amber and brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit."

"I figured. That was some fall." His hand lingered on her cheek.

"Mmhm."

"Amber."

She did not realize her eyes had been closed. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry I left you in the warehouse."

Her brow furrowed. "But Luigi was the one who left me."

"Yeah," he replied, "but I walked by the warehouse fourteen times last night, and each time, I told myself not to stop and check on you because I was in an asshole mood."

"It's not your fault, Grave. None of this is your fault." Did he honestly believe he had something to do with her miscarriage? Did he think he had somehow fueled Mercury's rage? Was he seriously blaming himself?

"I was a heartless bastard, Amber, and we both know it. Regardless of whether or not you got hurt because of me, I owe you an apology for the way I acted."

She shook her head. "I was stupid and immature from the beginning to the end. I owe _you _an apology."

Graverobber smiled at her and pulled her body closer. She was almost in his lap. The sun had just begun to peek out above the horizon. The sky outside the window was a perpetual smog gray-black, but if one looked close enough, he would see the faint pink and gold rays breaking up through the pollution – a shimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak world.

"Tomorrow," Graverobber said, and he looked her in the eyes and smiled, "tomorrow, I'm sure you and I can find a way to make everything seem all right."

They kissed until the sun rose. Amber Sweet had never been happier.

_The end._

* * *

**Author's Note: **I told you that everything would end on a good note, didn't I? Anyway, thanks, everyone, for sticking with me (and Amber) until the end.

Be on the lookout for an epilogue. Who knows? I may even figure out a way to work in a sequel... :)


	13. Epilogue

Epilogue

Time passed quickly – as time is often wont to do – after Amber acknowledged that her pregnancy had improved her ruined life. She did not stop using Z altogether – she had not gone _insane, _after all – but she _did _switch to using it only once a week, or whenever the grief flared up inside of her and she could not take it any longer. Nowadays, she found the Graverobber himself more addicting than the drug. They spent exhausting stretches of daylight together in which they held each other and kissed and just _talked. _It was the talking that fascinated Amber the most because their relationship had been exclusively physical before. Now, she was learning things about him that she never would have discovered had he not gotten her pregnant.

Luigi had been missing for weeks until one rainy Saturday. He walked into the GeneCo tower, took the elevator to the floor that housed Amber's office, walked into the office, grabbed Amber by the shoulders, and kissed her so hard she saw stars. Then, he stabbed her in the arm, wiped his knife on her shirt, and walked back to the elevator, went down to the main floor, and walked back out of the GeneCo tower.

Amber recovered from the knife wound in a few weeks, but she never recovered from Luigi's strange display of what could only be interpreted as madness.

Pavi and Jolenia had been doing quite well since Pavi's announcement that he wanted to commit himself to her, which he had made right in front of Amber. The two women had stared at Pavi in shock. Pavi had interpreted Jolenia's silence as rejection and bowed his head, embarrassed. Jolenia finally regained her composure and pressed her mouth to his cheek, and the Pavi lit up like a projection from an engineered cornea.

Shilo was still living with the Largos until the day she brought home a flea-infested scalpel slut with the worst complexion that Amber had ever seen. She took one look at Shilo and another look at the slut and said, "Out." She had not seen Shilo Wallace since.

The Sanitarium Island community was shaken by another social union – this one between _Vanity & Vein _reporter Caldera Grady and board-certified Genetic Surgeon and ex-Repo Man Mercury Drake. When the news finally got around to Amber, she took one look at her computer screen and swore. Reed Lorris, who had been dropping off organs at the time, took one look at the screen and laughed. "You can't let it get to you, Amber. They'll both get what's coming to them in the end."

Amber looked up at Reed and knew he was right. _What goes around, comes around…_

Life had just settled back to semi-normal when the elevator doors opened in Amber's office. She glanced up from her work to see the Graverobber, and a smile played at the corners of her lips.

"Hey," he said. "Um, can I ask you a favor?"

"Only if it involves physical contact."

His Adam's apple bobbed. Nervous? "She needs a place to stay."

Amber's smile faded. "_She_?"

And then the flea-infested scalpel slut – whose grimy face Amber had desperately tried to forget – stepped out from behind the Graverobber and staggered as though drunk.

"I found her under a pile of bodies in the graveyard. A Repo Man took her spleen and she almost bled out, but I stitched her back up and gave her a hit for the pain." He stared pleadingly at Amber. "All she needs is a place to rest while she heals. Please, Amber."

She shook her head and gave them a dismissive wave. Her attention refocused on the monitor. "Like hell I'm going to let _that _thing in my tower. Get out, Grave, and take your mangy bitch with you. I'm working."

There was a slight pause.

Graverobber said, "She's pregnant."

Amber breathed a steady string of curses. She had been pregnant, too. Graverobber knew that, which was precisely why he had used that fact like a weapon to persuade Amber to change her mind.

And Amber said, "Bring her in."

_To be continued… IN THE SEQUEL!_

* * *

**Author's Note: **This does indeed mean that I'll be writing a sequel. :)

Until then, that's all there is to this story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and thanks again for the overwhelming support. :D


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